A Long and Worrying Week

I am finding footprints everywhere these days, this place is pretty lively at night. 

We have had spectacular sunrises. 

And the moon in the middle of the night on All Souls Day was downright ghostly. 

I woke up to this on the first, too.  It is the food for the feral kittens in the old henhouse, and also, the feral that eats at the gate every day.  He was one of the three that ate on the deck this summer. 

He waits at the road for me to come feed him. 

I put food out early today, because the darn raccoons are eating so much. 

Notice there is now a heavy bag of soil on the can?  I am actually switching it 

to a metal can this weekend. 

This is Sister on the deck on Monday, notice his belly hanging. 

For the first few weeks Twinkle was here, they were kept apart, because we did not 

know about Twinkle.  Sunday afternoon, they finally played for the first time. 

Note the tail action. 

By yesterday at 11:30, we were facing this.  Sister began vomiting Monday evening, 

on Tuesday when I got back from the Ag, he was much, much worse, lethargic and could 

not stop vomiting.  He was running a high fever.  I rushed him to my vet, who kept him. 

By Wednesday night, he was worse, and we made an appointment for me to hold him as he was euthanized on Thursday, but... when I got there, he was stable, hooked up to the IV, had some 

morphine, was on a cooling pad, and the fever was down.  I had searched high and low here for poison he could have gotten into... could find nothing.  

The vet asked to give him one more day. 

I left. 

At four thirty, the vet called to say that he had a high fever again, and that he was making agonal howls.  I did not even have time to drive back over there. 

They asked for permission to euthanize, and I agreed. 

At 1:30, after I had left the office, the vet had checked for FIV and FeLV.  

Sis was positive for FIV, feline AIDS.  Remember, I found him as a stray last year at the hospital where Keith was on his last illness. 

We had not checked him in January when he got his shots. 

He also had a large tumor in his abdomen that was pushing his 

organs to the right.  That would have been the next thing to deal with 

if he had pulled through. (Go look again at that first picture of him on Sunday). 

So, God's will, I think.  He made sure Twink was here before Sister left me. 

Twinkle, where Sister used to lay in my lap. 

She is negative for FIV. 

How I'll miss my beautiful boy.