Now we lost our beautiful Samantha as well, due to her illness

Beautiful Samantha

Sonic passed away on October 27 and now his sister Samantha is with him. Both siblings had problems with their digestive tract, due to genetics. Even though their illnesses were slightly different, in both cases it resulted in continued weight loss, because their bodies could not absorb nutrients properly anymore.

Samantha was diagnosed with IBD in 2018 and had been in treatment since then. She was doing extremely well and had no flare up in that whole time frame. Until about late August this year, when her IBD flared up horribly, without an apparent reason. There had been no change in her diet, her medication or in our lives to cause any upset, or influence her negatively in some way. It really was out of the blue.

Since then I've been to the Vets so many times, and so often, I can't even count. We had tried countless different medications, doses, combinations of medications, plus supplements, pre and pro biotics and carefully tried different diets for her. We even moved from oral medications to injections, to bypass her intestines, in the hope of it working better. But none of it made even a tiny difference. No improvement the whole time, not even a little bit.

Slowly, she lost weight, despite eating a lot. Her diarrhoea and the inflammation caused the food to just go through her quickly, without her body taking from the food what it needed. Whatever was absorbed, was just barely enough to her alive.

During the last two weeks, her condition worsened some more. I still wasn't giving up and still tried different medications with the Vet.

But Monday night, poor Samantha was becoming restless. She could not relax at all and kept getting up from her beds after a few minutes. Wandering around aimlessly or asking for food.

I stayed up with her through these last nights, to comfort her and care for her any way I could.

Yesterday, she suddenly seemed to be unable to drink her water. She would just dip her little nose onto the water surface and then lift her head to look around with a confused and upset expression on her beautiful face.

No matter which bowl I tried, or which fountain, or at which height I tried to place it, she would not drink.

So I fed her water with a syringe, and she got drips for fluids.

She started complaining before and after having diarrhoea, which was new as well and not a good sign.

She got pain medicine, but still, Samantha was so unhappy. It was obvious. She was distressed and so sad. Her big beautiful eyes were so sad.

I spent the last 24 hours crying. At first because we knew at this point, there was nothing more that could be done. No amount of love would be able to heal her. She was suffering.

Therefore I talked to our Vet Lady and today, she came to our home. We spent a while just talking about Samantha and comforting the little girl. Samantha didn't have much time left. The signs were quite clear that it would not be very long anymore. But if we just waited for her to pass away on her own, she would continue to suffer, as her symptoms kept worsening.

Thankfully, Samantha knew our Vet Lady well and has never been worried or afraid of her. So my beautiful girl was put to sleep, with her little head in my hand, getting cuddled and comforted. I was just glad that she didn't get upset at any point. No complaint, no sign of fear at all.

She slept away quietly and peacefully and is now reunited with her lovely brother Sonic and my sweet girl Murli, who passed away on December 10, 2019 when her heart failed at age 15.

Now poor Hero and Lisa, lost 3 of their fur siblings, their friends and family members. All 5 kitties really loved each other.

I'm just absolutely shattered. My heart hurts so much, I can't even describe it. I miss Samantha so much already. I don't even know how I'll get over her missing next to me as well now. I was normally surrounded by all the kitties in bed every night, each of them at their favourite spot.

I don't know how I'll get over not hearing Samantha's sweet meows and her constant purring. Each and every one of my kitties is family and all of them so unique, as all cats are.

It was such a horrible and hard decision to put Samantha to sleep, as I didn't want to lose her. My husband Ralph is absolutely heartbroken as well. It's so painful.

I just wonder if Samantha feels that I have betrayed her by putting her to sleep. Because she was used to the Vet and getting checked out. She probably thought that this is just like always, but it wasn't. I keep apologizing in my thoughts to her and in my prayers. I tell her how much we all love her and that we will always love her. That we will all be together again at some point, once our lives end as well.

This year has definitely been one of the most difficult ones, with all the horror and worries about the increasing tyranny and the long process of caring for two ill and beloved elderly cats, without being able to save either of them in the end.

I'm thankful for all the time we had my dear Samantha. I'll always carry the love you gave me in my heart. I miss you so very much.