Goodbye

As if my week hadn't been stressful enough, Jacob and I arrived home from the hospital on Saturday to find our cat, who had been missing for several days, out back looking sick and like a skeleton. We brought him into the house that evening and took him to the vet yesterday. The vet's diagnosis was that he was extremely underweight, anemic, and dehydrated. The blood tests showed us why: Bandit had feline leukemia. We decided to take him home and see if he would rebound within the next few days but when we went to give him his dose of medicine last night we found that he was already gone. :(


Ben and I had gotten Bandit from a strange old man in Ohio that had a whole backyard/junkyard full of cats and a free sign out front. He was a tiny little kitten and used to sleep with me at night when Ben worked night shift. When we moved back to Iowa and lived in the country he loved the freedom of the outdoors and even when we moved into town he would not be contained to the house...which is probably why he came down with feline leukemia to begin with - roaming near other strange cats. He was a feisty cat and always marched the the beat of his own drum. It's difficult saying goodbye to a pet that you've had for ten years. :(