Pet Loss Guilt

I lost my furbaby Sissy almost 9 months ago and i still cannot shake the guilt over what happened.

It started last October when i noticed some clouding in Sissy's left eye. I ment to take her to the vet to have it checked out as she was only a 3 year old cat. Within a week i was struck by a serious illness that left me hospitalized and with numerous neurological complications. I had damage to my short term memory and i kept forgetting to take Sissy to the vet and my caretakers were too preoccupied with me to pay much attention to my little girl. I can't remember what happened, i don't know how long she had been deteriorating or even if i noticed. By December the worst happened, I picked up my Sissy and noticed she was light as a feather and her eye had went blind and the right was nearly blind with a thick brown film. I panicked and refused to put her down all night for fear i would forget she was so ill, but i knew she was dying. I was still too ill to even drive her to an emergency vet. All I could do was hold her and apologize for failing her until a nurse arrived in the morning. Well I did manage to get my boyfriend up and he took me that morning to the vet. The news was bad, she had feline leukemia and that is what had caused the blindness. I made the choice to euthanize Sissy then, I knew she was dying and i had already caused her to suffer this long. Plus i was afraid I would forget again and she would die alone and forgotten. It gets worse from here but thats another agony I'll spare everyone here. I wish this ended here but sadly it does not.

See the previous winter i had taken in a stray kitten i had found in a parking lot. The kitten ran away over the spring only to reappear at my barn following Sissy's death. I work with a local volunteer for the humane society to manage the feral cat colony in the barn. Living in the country people tend to dump unwanted cats at your door all the time, i get about 1 a month dumped at the barn. We trap and sterilize the ferals so no new kittens are born. The runaway was trapped and neutered nothing too special about it. In the mean time i had my surviving cat Lacey tested and she was thankfully negative, i also took in another unwanted cat. Not long afterwards Vinny the runaway was becoming ill- he too had "the leuk" and this is where it gets bad. When he was sterilized the vet who donates services to help manage this colony tested him for the felv and he was positive and the vet let us release him knowing he was infected. The vet never once informed us that this cat was positive and as it turns out this was nothing new.

I got the farm after my illness, previous to that i was a horse boarder here. The lady that runs the colony management here had other cats that were released felv positive of which each one she found out about after the fact. Vinny was presumed to be born from the last known positive female and i was never told. I do not blame the volunteer as alot of this came to light after Sissy died and she herself was unaware of what this vet did until Vinny came back positive AFTER he had already been seen, tested and sterilized and released. I took this cat in and infected my Sissy and killed her. Vinny is now dying and does not understand why i will not take him in and comfort him in his last few months. The whole colony can now never be adopted and any new cat in is geting a death sentence. I could just have him put down but he ran loose among the ferals and the local outdoor cats for over year while infected. I would have to kill the whole colony and even then its no guarantee that i wont miss a carrier.

I'm angry this vet lies about doing routine felv testing. he wont tell you he does the tests and waits for you to bring the animal in already sick to tell you the results he got perhaps months ago.

I'm angry that this vet donates services to a humane society then demands $35 per cat to release results hes already obtained, on cats he knows are ferals.

I'm angry that because of this lack of ethics i inadvertantly killed my pet and put my other in grave danger.

I'm angry that a whole colony is at risk, and countless other peoples pets. (theres a subdivision behind my soybean field)

and I'm riddled with guilt over the whole incident. I forgot my baby and i killed her. I let Vinny put at risk a whole neighborhood of pets and i know what i do about this vet and theres nothing i can do to stop him from allowing this to happen elsewhere. I cant prove Vinny infected Sissy for all i know Sissy was born with it and infected Vinny but either way i helped it spread, even if by accident and with the best of intentions. I have to face Vinny everyday, everyday is a reminder of how i failed and what i have done. I'm also angry for paying penance for a crime i didnt commit. none of this would have happened if the vet had released the test results he already had- as he was the vet who spayed my two girls and neutered vinny. So either he let me take home an infected cat and a noninfected cat or he let Vinnys mother go home infected to spread it to her kittens and barn mates and let Vinny go back infected to finish spreading what his mother had started.

I still know ultimately that i am to blame, i asked about the felv test and assumed when he said he tested that he would tell me if the result was positive- i should have asked more specifically. i also had no right to let Sissy suffer like i did. I know i couldnt have saved her life but i should have thought of something to stop her suffering sooner. I feel shame whenever my surviving cat comes to cuddle, somedays the shame of what has happened makes petting her unbearable.

I dont expect to be forgiven for what i did, but i need help to move on past it. im now questioning my past judgement calls with other pets and my current ones.