William My Angel

I don’t know where to start so I will start at the beginning. I have been coming here for almost two weeks now, looking to find other people who feel as I do about losing the most precious friendship they have in the companionship of a pet. I had two cats up until the 12th of May this year. However, I now only have one. The cat I lost was called William and the cat I still have is called Harry. I know, it’s a bit funny but they really are and were my two little princes.

I chose these names when I got them at 6 weeks old because it just suited them both. It took me three years to pluck up the courage and get these two balls of fluff and perfection as I had lost a cat who I nursed through FLV for almost three years and it was a heart breaking experience, and I promised myself that I never wanted to go through all that heartbreak again. I felt torn apart when I lost him and also bitter that I never let him go when I knew he was in pain. I kept him going right up until the end as I couldn’t make the decision to have him put to sleep. I have to say that it is true that I watched him die in pain, and I felt selfish as I did this to satisfy my own personal needs of not letting him go when I should have done.

Anyway, three years later and I was talked into getting another cat so I went begrudgingly to see a lady who had four stray females who had all had kittens at the same time. When I got to the house and rang the doorbell a young boy answered the door and I asked him if I could see the kittens I had been informed of. As he ran off up the hall to fetch his mother a little white kitten, with a tabby patch on its head, and a tabby tail, not more than 5 weeks old can running down the hall towards me and then stopped at the front door. He just looked up at me…. I knew that I had to have him because he seemed so ##y and sure of himself. We were ushered in and the little kitten led the way into a living room with about 22 other kittens and four proud mothers. I was gob smacked, it took a lot of courage for me not to want to take all of them but, I trusted my instincts and chose the little ##y white and tabby and, a sleepy golden tabby kitten. I went back the following week and picked them both up and took them to their new home with me. I know but I fell in love with them both and it was time for me to give a good home to two new babies.

Anyway, the little white and tabby I named William and the Tabby I named Harry. Harry turned out to be a bit timid and the cat that never wanted to sit on your lap. He could be quite grumpy and hide behind the sofa but I love him to bits and worry about him because he’s such a loner. He loved William and they slept together all the time. He used to wrap his arms around William when they used to sleep in their beds together. It was almost like he was very protective of him between the years of 0-5 years. But it changed after 5 years of age. William on the other hand lived up to his ##y cheeky character. He would roll around the floor or the sofa or even the bed and demand attention. And you know what he always got it. He always talked to me and my sister with meows and head nods in understanding. You walked into a room and call his name and he would nod and meow back a response. He wanted to be picked up and caressed and he wanted above all else to suck and paw your neck and hair. He was a one off. If you felt depressed he would know and he would come and find you and rub up to you to tell you he was there, and he cared. My sister suffers from migraines and he would lie down next to her head and sooth away the pain for her. I know it sounds crazy but he did.

When he reached five we found out he had developed diabetes, and when I found out I felt like my world had caved in. I felt like I was about to be robbed of another companion that I had become attached to. The vet said he was very young to have developed it but he was also a bit of a piglet when it came to feeding times and I found out that he was eating much of Harries food as well as his own. I actually blame myself for this and know that I should have controlled his eating more. And as they were both house bound cats because I live on a busy main road I didn’t let them out. I was afraid they would get run over.

Now I’m getting to the end of my story and I’m sorry if it’s long but I’m trying to build a picture for you all. It took me six months to get William’s diabetes stabilised and I felt like I was going through hell looking after a sick cat all over again. The memories came back with a vengeance. But you know what through all this Willie’s personality never really changed at all. I felt like he was trying to tell me, ‘hey it’s ok I have a chronic illness but I am still the same mogwopit and don’t let this deter you’. It didn’t because I didn’t want to lose him and I would have done ANYTHING to keep him…. The Vet was also very supportive and trained us to give him his insulin shots which we grasped in a week. He was a real fighter and he came through it and after these hard first six months of this chronic illness he just seemed to stabilise and he was almost 100% ok. My sister and I took his illness so seriously that we would read the back of all the packs of cat food making sure there were no hidden things like sugars and carbs that would mess up his blood sugar. I eventually found this great cat food that was just meat based, but I had to mix his prescription food in it as I wasn’t sure about completely taking him of insulin. This honeymoon period lasted almost five years and six months. Then about six months ago I noticed that I was finding pink coloured bile that I worked out was his… I was really worried and so took him to the vet. My vet found nothing wrong other than he had an upset tummy. He gave him some antibiotics and sent him home. At this stage he had lost some weight but after this visit he actually put it back on and he was great for almost two months. But then he started going off food really quickly and we had to keep taking him back to the vet and he just kept finding that it was because we kept changing his food and this was upsetting his digestive system. He would eat his breakfast with his shot in the morning but by lunch time he wouldn’t eat much at all. However, his personality never changed and he didn’t seem like he was in any pain or ill. He wasn’t sick and he would meow for food like he was hungry all the time, but when you put food infront of him he wouldn’t eat it. We just put it down to his diabetes. My sister took him back again 6 weeks ago and our vet said that he had actually put on some weight and not to worry as he was not under weight yet and he still looked great.

I was away from the house the morning it all went wrong on the 12th of May. My sister got up for work gave Willie his shot in the morning and fed him. She sat and watched Harry and him eat their breakfast. Then she said goodbye to them both and left the house. My father came to the house at 11.00am to check on them both and found Willie lying on the floor. He called him but he didn’t move. He just looked at my father and couldn’t even lift his head up. My Father rushed him straight to the vet who is just a ten min walk from my home. The Vet looked at him and felt around the abdomen and said that he could feel a large mass on his pancreas. He said there was nothing he could do and that he was slipping away very quickly. My poor dad had to let me and my sister know and it took a while for us to get to the vets. I felt like my heart had been ripped out. When we did get there they told me that he had started fitting and this was due to the tumour affecting his brain. They said that his breathing was getting very difficult and, that he was panting and he was very disorientated. I asked if I could take him home and say goodbye to him, let Harry say goodbye to his bother. But they said he might not make it anyway even if I did do that. He just didn’t have a few hours left. My sister and I went in to see him one final time and when I saw him I knew in my heart that it was the right thing to do. He was still fitting and he didn’t even know we were their.

So I signed all the papers and at the end I couldn’t even be there because I was too distraught. And as an owner I feel that I let him down in that department. He’s been so faithful to me and loving and I couldn’t even hold him in his final moments. I was such a coward. I deserted him. That is the thing right now I hate myself for. There is nothing anyone can say that will help me stop feeling this guilt, and after all he had been through with his diabetes I didn’t have the balls to stroke him and tell him I loved him right up until the end. I feel dumb, and I feel like my heart has been torn from my chest and rung out. I have also been through the ‘what if’ scenario too. I keep thinking that there was something I could have done…… Prevented the tumour? Anything? I would do anything for him to be back. Yes I can look at photos but what I really want is to stroke and talk to him. I miss him so badly that it’s taken me two weeks to post anything about it here. I just needed to speak to ppl who don’t think I’m mad. I know that I’m not. He was my best friend. The nurses at the surgery knew how much William was to my sister and I. They both took him in together while the vet gave him his last shot of all. He didn’t even put up a fight and went very peacefully. And he took my heart with him.

My sister and I have lost a pillow buddie, a hair and neck sucker, a, ‘scratch my tummy mummy please because it is great!’ He used to freak out when we did that. You could walk up to him and he would just roll over onto his back with paws in the air and demand to have his tummy rubbed. He was a reason to looked forward to come home from work each night and the one who always talked to us even if it was a meow. We understood him……Gone in a day……

I have his ashes in a beautiful wooden carved box with a brass inscription on it that reads… Friend to the End… And this is what he was. There was no hint of impending sadness to come. Not even when my sister left to go to work…

My vet has told me that we were so lucky that he lived with his illness for so long and that it was down to my sister and I looking after him so well through it. He broke a record at the surgery. He said that many don’t last more that 18 months and that some owners actually put their cats to sleep if they develop diabetes. They don’t want that commitment. I don’t understand that? If I had not given my cat that chance I would have never had the opportunity of knowing that he could have lived another 5 ½ years with this…… And I would do it again. The last five years have been very rewarding for me….. I hope that I didn’t fail him there and that I did actually do everything I could for him….. Harry pines for him. He hears the slightest sound and he runs around the house looking for him. This part is breaking my heart… And his howls for him…… its gut wrenching.

I’m sorry my sister and I feel very lonely right now….. and so does Harry.

I need answers too..... he was 10 and a half years old... is it common for cats with diabetes to develope cancer as I have been told it is..... I know I'm clutching at anything to make head or tail of how it happened so quickly.