Please read Fluffy's Story... A Victim of Veterinary Malpractice

Fluffy... Mr. Fluffy, Mr. F, Flubby, Flubster, The Big Guy, T.B.G., and a lot more; he had his full share of nicknames...

I have never met a cat like Fluffy in all my life. I had always wanted a fluffy cat. This one was REAL special. He was as much a dog as a cat. By your side when you needed him. He seemed to understand your moods and your needs. He would always come to stay with Diane whenever she was upset. Even before we took him in, you could tell he was different. For a stray cat, he wasn�t afraid of people. He was trusting, he was calm, he was COOL. And he had this real high voice, too high for a cat of his size. At 18 pounds, he should have had a deeper voice, but it was distinctly HIS... meow-MEOW-meow? He would come into the kitchen and sit by the cat-food cabinet and wait until you put some Friskies on the floor for him. He would come into the bedroom at night just as we were about to go to sleep and climb up on my chest and lay down there with his big beautiful gray and white face in my face. and he would PURRRRRR. Ten minutes later, he�d lay down by my feet or on his paper bag on the floor, where he�d spend the rest of the night.

First thing in the morning I would take him into the bathroom for our morning routine. He�d climb into the litter box and as he squatted, I�d put the cut-down plastic cup under him to get our daily sample. It seems like he�s had blood in his urine for as long as I can remember. It�s like a part of him... part of our routine now. We get up, he pees, I test his pee, log in his values: Protein: 2, Glucose: 0, pH: 6.6, Blood: 2, only a few crystals. Ok, not too bad. As long as the pH stays below 7, the crystals in his bladder will dissolve some more. Blood? well, 2 on a scale of 0 to 3 isn�t TOO bad... for him. Sometimes its a 3. One of the ultrasounds showed that one of his kidneys had signs of some kind of trauma or injury and was presumed to be the source of the blood. The ultrasounds also showed a layer of crystals at the bottom of his bladder. So to help break up and dissolve them, I would pick him up and cradle him in my arms like a baby in an attempt to stir up the crystals before he would pee, and then hopefully he would pee out as many as possible. Kind of like a live kitty "snow globe" - like the one I bought Diane for her birthday, with the two kitties inside.

After I�d finish my morning workday routines, I�d let him back into the bedroom, where Diane was asleep. He�d jump up on the bed, and make his way between her and the edge of the bed. As I woke her up with the morning kitty status report ("no pukes, no diarrheas, no soft loads, everybody ate ok", plus Fluffy's daily urine results), he�d come between us and demand attention - meow-MEOW-meow! And he�d do head-butts to me, Diane, and the night-stand by the bed. I�d have to spend a few minutes with him like that until he settled down before I could head off to work. Fluffy was a joy... an absolute joy. He would play and really make you smile. One of his favorite toys was a tennis ball. Diane would roll it to him as he sat in front of her so that it wound up between his front legs - "she shoots, she scores!", and he would do a little hop, grab the tennis ball and roll on his side and do the "kick-off" on it - grab it with the front paws, and kick at it with his back feet. If she rolled the ball across the living room floor, he would watch it for a second, do a BIG hop, and run across the floor after it. It�s unbelievable how such a big cat could play so much and jump so high.

Fluffy was beautiful inside and out. Diane and I were both so proud of him. Such a beautiful face, with a great personality to match. He was just SO BIG, not really fat, just a "big boned" kinda cat. Well, someone once said he was a little fat, but we never believed it. He looked great the way he was.

He loved to sleep in the sun, and he loved to sleep on the 2nd shelf of the cat tree in the living room, where he had a great view of the living room and the front yard. He also loved catnip. He loved the cardboard scratch pads that were filled with catnip. He�d spend an hour clawing it, and licking the catnip. �Course, he might pee on it if the mood struck him, but whachagonnado? Well, we learned to watch him around the catnip.

The last few days we had with him, he was still terriffic. He never seemed sick, though he was quite jaundiced. I gave him sub-Q fluids twice a day, and he took them with grace. I fed him with a syringe and through most of it, he would just sit there with this look that says, "you know, I really don�t want that stuff", and I�d have to explain that it was just to keep him going until he felt like eating on his own again. We knew he wanted to eat something, but nothing appealed to him anymore. Although he did eat that one single piece of Friskies by himself on his last day.

There are still signs of him all over the house, and it seems like each one I see reopens the rivers behind my eyes. The tennis ball still sits on the floor in the living room, but no one else plays with it... The brand new box of test strips sits in the medicine cabinet... The paper bag on the floor where he�d sleep in the bedroom is still there, and will probably stay there as long as Biffy likes it... The empty 2nd shelf of the cat tree... The snow-globe that sits on Diane's dresser... The pill bottles that he shared with Biffy still sitting on the kitchen counter... And the sub-Q fluids ordered last week haven�t even arrived yet! I just HOPE that we don�t have to use them for anyone else... but then that�s what we said when we lost Binky 51 weeks ago.

Fluffy, you are and will always be SO loved.

Jeff 1/2/97

My "Child" is Gone...
(for Fluffy)

You had the most trusting eyes that I have ever seen.
A smudge upon your precious nose, and ears never quite clean.
Your Mane, that lovely gorgeous mane, I'd brush it every day.
Oh how I loved to look at you. I loved to watch you play.

I hated days when you were sick, you'd tap your tail with might.
I longed to see you well again, we tried to make things right.
The Stones, those awful stones you made, were a part of all our lives.
Oh how we tried to right that wrong, how did they all survive?

I'd brush you every day and night, we'd "talk" and love and play.
You always came when I'd cry, and wiped my tears away.
You were a joy, a special joy, a light that shone so bright.
I sit in darness now that you're gone, the days have turned to night.

You were my cat, my child, my love,... a loyal and loving friend.
You're gone and now I'm empty, I always thought I'd see you again.

I've tried to make some sense of this, and why you had to go.
I suppose God has some greater plan, one that I don't know.
Your loss just seems so senseless; It didn't have to be.
For when God took you from my life, he took so much from me.

I sit on this computer chair, and wait to hear your cry.
I sit here in the darkness, a part of me has died.

Mommy 1/3/98

Tributes from Friends

Fluffy's Page

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