Katana – 04/25/06 to 02/19/10 – Forever in our hearts.

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My beloved Siamese, Katana, passed away last Friday. Nearly a month ago, her health started to decline rapidly and she was diagnosed with Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia (IMHA), which is an auto immune disease. The prognosis in cats is never favorable, so we all knew it was a long shot. After weeks of hand feeding, medications, supplements, multiple vet visits, and all the nursing in the world… she finally deteriorated. The entire last week I didn’t sleep much, checking on her every few hours and trying to improve her chances with every veterinary skill I possess. However, once she began to show signs of substantial pain, my heart couldn’t take it. I couldn’t allow my beautiful girl to spend her last days with us in agony, so we took her in to the vet one final time. At this point, her RBCs (red blood cells) were all but gone, her breathing labored, and her body extremely weak. So, surrounded by all of her favorite people (Miss Audrie, Miss Noel, Master Damiano, and myself), we wished her a final goodbye. I will never forget those beautiful blue eyes as I held her in my arms, so full of love and devotion.

Many of you are aware that I am a dire-hard animal lover. It goes with the territory: I am a third-generation breeder and was nearly raised in a whelping box. I’ve had dozens of animals in my life, and losing one never gets any easier. And when a pet was as close to me as Katana, it never will.

Katana was brilliant, probably the smartest cat I’ve ever encountered. She was opinionated and possessive and incredibly social. Siamese are known for being very interactive and highly vocal, and Katana was a pristine example of her breed. Her rich blue eyes were very human like in their expressions and she loved to melt the hearts of “non-cat people.”

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Like most animal people, I love to take pictures and videos of my pets. Here’s a little memorial piece I threw together from the last several months. Click below to watch the 2-minute video.

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Or, download the AVI video here.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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