This is Shadow's Story. When you get thru reading this, you will know why I call him my "Special Kitty!"
Ok, here is Shadow's Story:
His Momma had him in my hay barn. Actually, I thought she had 3 kittens, because that is all I ever saw for about 2 or 3 weeks.
I was letting my hay run down so I could get a new and fresh batch. I moved a bale and there was this black and white kitten, stuck between the hay and the wall. How Lovey, that was the Momma cat, kept him alive, I don't know. His body was flat, his head was big and his little eyes were bulging. I picked him up and he had a set of lungs on him that was surprising. I guess it hurt to be picked up.
I put him with his litter mates, but I really didn't expect him to live. I asked a friend of mine if he would put him down, because I was afraid he would have a slow painful death. I am unable to aide in the death of anything, even if it is for their own good. My friend came back and said he couldn't do it either. So everyday when I went to the barn, I expected to find this little black and white kitty dead and everyday, he was still alive. At 6 weeks, the other kittens went to new homes and I couldn't leave him out there by himself, so in the house he came. Ten years later that is where he still remains!!! The picture above was taken shortly after I brought him in the house in Sept '93 and he had grown some. (Need to fix a mistake-I have been telling people Shadow and Miss Dula, my other kitty, were 11 y/o. But I got to looking at my pictures, and the date on the back of them says '93, so they are 10, not 11).
He didn't know how to eat! I had to water down canned cat food and put it in a syringe and squirt it down his throat. He would get the taste of it and I would put his plate in front of him and he would put his whole face in it and try to suck it up, like sucking thru a straw. To this day, he doesn't eat dry food! Took him a while and a lot of face washings to get the hang of eating.
He does have an annoying trait that only a Mom could still love him for and tolerate, he doesn't use a litter box, never has, he uses newspaper!!! A little later on, I'll tell you how this trait has turned into a plus, with age.
He truly is a retarded kitty, there are many things about him, if you spent time with him, you would know are not normal behavior. When I got him neutered, he almost never came out from under the influence of the drug they used, so I won't let them sedate him anymore. One vet wanted to clean his teeth and I asked if he had to be sedated and they said yes, so I said no and explained why. This has been done since I first wrote this, they used gas and he was still very slow coming around. In July '03, he had his teeth cleaned and one pulled.
I was going to call him Retard (not really, I was just teasing a friend of mine), but she said, "If he don't have a problem already, if you call him that he will"! Anyway, it turns out, he named himself. He would sit in front of the wall and play with his shadow for the longest time. I started out calling him Shadow Boxer, but that got shortened to Shadow quick enough, plus, he is my little shadow around the house.
In '95 was my 1st trip to the hospital when I nearly died, I was there 4 weeks. Gina, my daughter, took care of my animals then and at that time Shadow wasn't on any meds. When I came home from the hospital, he was a nasty kitty and I couldn't figure out why. A couple of nights later he had a seizure, scared me to death. Never seen anything like that in a cat! In fact, I had only seen that one other time in a poodle I had, it was his 1st and last, his seizure killed him! Broke my heart!
Anyway, seeing this in Shadow scared me something awful and they seemed to last forever, even tho it wasn't that long. I realized then, that he had been having them while I was in the hospital, that was why he was so dirty. We went through experimental drug testing, and they were coming so often and getting more violent. We were using phenobarbital, but the dosage they started him out on was too high, and instead of calming him down, it hyped him up and he was bouncing off the walls.
So they gave him valium! Was supposed to give him 1/4 of a 5mg tablet 4 times a day. Well, he only got one dose of that, because he was a souped up kitty with no legs. He was trying to play with his toys, but he couldn't stand up for nothing. That was almost as scary as the seizures. So we started working with the phenobarb and it started helping.
When I moved here, I thought the stress was going to kill him. He started having them every few days. I took him to the vet in Fort Smith and they took blood, x-rays and all kinds of stuff and couldn't find anything. This isn't the 1st time this was done. So they upped his phenabarb to 1/2 pill twice a day, and he had a "S" so we upped it to 3/4 twice a day and he hasn't had one for a few years now (I'm knocking on my solid wood coffee table as I type this.) That's the longest he has ever gone!
Because of the high doses of meds that Shadow takes, we have to have his liver checked about every 6 months. So far, so good, but 8/18/03 he dveloped a UTI and had to be cathed. He was gone for 2 nights and I was scared to death the stress of it all would bring on a "S" but he came thru it without one. He is on a special diet now and seems to be doing really well with it. This is where peeing on the paper is a "plus" now, because I can see if he is having problems a lot easier than if he was using the litter box.
Well, I hope I didn't bore you too bad with this story. One other thing that gets affected when the "S" are bad, is his neurological system and his co-ordination, which isn't that good to begin with!.
Now you know why I call him "My Special Kitty".
We started with a baby picture, so I will end with this one.
Thank you for visiting Shadow's Page.
Page updated 1-14-05
It is with a heavy and a broken heart that I write that Shadow has gone to Rainbow Bridge.
Around the end of November things started to change with him. He started having seizures again and he was self mutalating himself. At 1st the vet and I thought it was from his skin itching, and we also thought he had OCD, because he didn't know when to stop chewing, but we were never sure of that. Also, from the way he was walking and acting and having headaches, we thought he had a tumor. The only way to know for sure was to put him thru a bunch of test he may not survive and still not be able to do anything, so we decided not to do the test.
We upped his phenobarb to a whole pill twice a day and that did help with the seizures. We put him on Amitriptyline for the OCD, and played with the dosage and it seemed to help for a short while, a very short while.
I was afraid to leave him alone, because every time I did, even for a short while, I would come home and find he had torn himself up and his headaches were coming more often.
From Fri. Jan. 7th to Tue Jan. 11th, he wasn't able to get up on his own and would only eat when I hand fed him, which I was gladly doing. But all the while, he was loosing weight and the headaches were getting worse. But because he had been a little fighter all his life, he was still putting up a good fight.
Giving him peace and saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I've ever done! Now I'm lonely and feel lost, my whole routine was built around Shadow and his needs for so long. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel peace, or feel whole again!
This is a poem that was written especially for Shadow and for someone else whose beloved kitty went to the Bridge in January also. For you Sweet Shadow, written by Laurie.
Our Love....
The first time I saw you
you were so small and fragile
I fell in love with you right away.
I kept my eye on you and when
you truely needed me I was there for
you and took you in that day.
Oh, how you needed me
you didn't even know how to eat.
Finding you is what God willed it be
so I could get you back on your feet.
You became my companion,
my friend, our lives became one.
Our love will last forever, it has no
end for in our hearts we are one.
You became sick, I didn't know
what to do. I took you to vets, you had
lots of tests, I did all I could think of to do
All because of my love for you.
No matter how much I tried
It was time for you to go.
Now everyday I have cried
This I know you already know.
You are now above me
Looking down with loving eyes
Watching and protecting me
Wishing that I wouldn't cry.
One day I know that we will be
back together you'll see.
For one day it'll be my time to go
and you will be there waiting for me.
Even though right now we are apart
I will never forget you.
You will always be in my heart
For I will always love you.....
As I know that you will always.....
............................ Love me too.
Laurie Konscak
Darlene and Shadow
Rest in Peace
My Sweet Shadow
Aug. 1993 - Jan. 11, 2005
Shadow's lit candle