Only the good die young!

Well, i’m getting in early with the release of emotions after coming back from the vet only 4 hours ago to put my 6 month male abyssinian Sphynxy down. He got hit by a car yesterday morning ( i saw the whole thing) and I could see his back leg had been broken, Luckily I had family around at the time and we rushed him to our local vet. I was so concerned about his leg and perhaps internal injuries that I didn’t even realise that his tail was paralysed. Our vet took one look at him and his lifeless tail and said he look paralysed from the hips down with spinal damage and this affects his ability to go to the toilet. I looked down at my beautiful baby and couldn’t believe with how damaged he was he was just looking up at me with adoring eyes without a clue of his condition. The vet advised xrays would only confirm his suspsions and not to expect any good news. At this point I was in utter shock!!.. After arriving home about an hour later I got a phone call from the vet to say that he had some movement in his tail and the xrays showed a smashed pelvis which needed specialist attention. So, off to the specialist we went and upon evaluation were told that we could perform the hip opertation for 4K but would need to wait until scans for internal injury were cleared. Alas, a phone call at 11.30pm last night revealed that there was a leak somewhere in his bladder/urine tract which meant his urine was sitting in his belly somewhere and that they would try and stabilise him until the surgeon could look further at his prognosis. This morning I went to see my beloved Sphynxy in the ICU unit hooked up to this tube and that heart monitor and the surgeon advised that if the bladder was ruptured this would be more easily fixable then anything else but the only way to diagnosis this was to put die in his tract system to see where the leak was. I left the vet quite hopeful, alas another 3 thousand dollars to perform this surgery, only to get the terrible news that the leak wasn’t in his bladder but in his Uretha Trak which is only 2mm wide. His blood pressure was low and a further operation to fix this would only give him a 20% chance of surviving with almost a 100% chance of complication either during surgery or post care. This is all before the hip could even be looked at. My Vet was fantastic with his honesty and explanation of his surgery, he is a specialist in this area of surgery as well so when he got to the point of saying ‘If this was my cat I would be thinking very hard now if I would continue with treatment’. My decision to put him down wasn’t as difficult as I thought considering the amount of pain I could see he was in along with his very small and slim chance of a full recovery. Not to mention ongoing treatment and issues with going to the toilet for the rest of his life. Interestingly enough the extent of money I may have been up for in no way factored into whether I proceeded or not. If I was given a 50/50 chance of getting through the surgery I would have taken that chance but it was his quality of life post surgery that I was concerned with. This free spirited adoring and affectionate cat would never be the same after his extensive surgery even if he did survive. I was with him when he passed and strangely a great sense of relief hit me because I knew he was no longer in any pain and that although only lived a very short 6 months, he lived it to the fullest. I’m writing this more for my own brain to comprehend that the last 30 hours of turmoil has actually happened. I’m picking him up in an hour to take his remains home and bury him under his favourite tree that he used to climb to get a ‘birds eye view’ of the world. He was the best cat I have ever owned and close friends of mine who aren’t cat likers let alone lovers converted to loving this little friend of mine. I’ll miss you sphynxy, there will be no more pain for you and for this i am truly grateful. You were too good for this world and didn’t need long to learn your lessons this time round. Only the good die young and you were the best…