Goodbye my friend

Jasper was a cat I rescued in February of 2009. The person who brought him in was upset because he had been eating her cats’ food for the past few months. He had also been having diarrhea all over the garage and he was covered in it. He was emaciated, had terrible dental disease but when I rubbed him on the forehead (one of the few places without feces) he started his thunderous purr. I was smitten. I asked to let him stay with me and was happy when I got to bundle him up in a towel and take him out back for a well needed bath. He purred during the entire half hour bath.

Over the next year and a half, we battled his chronic diarrhea with a variety of medications, foods and supplements. When we could no longer control his weight loss we had an ultrasound done by Dr Clarkson, an internal medicine specialist, at the Fish Creek Pet Hospital. She determined that he had a form pancreatitis, most likely exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. By following all of her recommendations (medications and supplements), he started to gain weight and continued to have a great quality of life.

I may be slightly biased but he was a wonderful cat. Whenever someone needed a hug and a purr he was always ready to step up to help. If we needed to train a client on how to give insulin injections, he made them feel at ease by purring as they learned. It got to a point where if you picked up an insulin syringe and took him to the cat exam room, his purr became deafening.

Jasper was also a very smart geriatric boy. He could sniff out people food in an instant and was known to try to crawl up your legs (pants or not) to get to it. Our food could not be left unguarded if he was on one of his walkabouts. Jasper also figured out how to get into the boarding cats’ food as well by sticking his little leg through the door and pulling the dish towards him. He always had such a proud look whenever he was successful.

Yesterday, we came in to a very sick boy. He had vomited up blood, had pale mucus membranes, was lethargic and not interested in food. All signs to make my heart sink. I performed a simple test called a pcv (packed cell volume) to see what his level of red blood cells were. I could barely look my staff in the eye when I read the result. He was at 16 while his normal was 35. Once you go down to 12, you need a blood transfusion. Due to his age, I knew that a blood transfusion would only be for us humans, not in his best interests. We made him as comfortable as we could and contacted the rest of his Foothills Animal Hospital family.

Letting him go was one of the hardest thing I have ever done but I was so honoured to have known him. Jasper was the definition of unconditional love.