Cassie Kirby March 1998-March 2011 Beloved Kitty

Cassie was 13 yrs old, she was born in the basement of our little house to the last of the feral cats we inherited when we bought our house. Doug came running in to tell me about her when she was born & told me that he was keeping her. Wh...en she was first born she was black, but had silver guard hairs over the top of the black. That's baby Doug holding baby Cassie. We ended up weaning her & her sister & brothers when their mom disappeared for 24hrs when they were 4 wks old. We bottle fed them for a week first. When they were old enough we found homes for the other kittens, but Doug got to keep his kitten

I love this picture of her. It's actually framed & hanging in our dining room. Cassie was very independant & did things her own way. She could come in the house anytime she wanted to, but wouldn't. When is snowed a few months ago, I tried to bring her in, it lasted all of five minutes. She loved her family, but really didn't let anyone else close to her. She was an excellent ratter & mouser.

About 10 days ago I noticed that she was bloated in her abdomen. I thought she had worms so I wormed her. A couple of days later she was still bloated, I still thought it was worms, but a more serious case, so I took her to the vet. It wasn't worms, her abdominal cavity was filled with fluid. They drained off the fluid & sent some off to be tested. None of the results would've been good, it was all pretty much a death sentence. They sent me home with some antibiotics for her & pressure bandage around her tummy. I kept her inside as long as she would stay, but short of keeping her in a kennel, it wasn't going to happen. She hated the antibiotics and after a couple of days on those she disappeared. The neighbors were seeing her, but she wasn't coming to anyone including the kids.

This morning I went about my regular routine, got home from Zumba about 10:45am. At 1:30pm I went outside to get the mail. Sometime in that almost 3 hours, Cassie had come home, crawled into her bed and passed away. She buried not far from where she was sitting in the second picture...she loved to sit up there and watch. I'll miss you so much Cassie, who will be waiting for me on the front porch when I come home from work? Who will sit on the front porch with me and keep me company on summer evenings? We love you, safe journey.

Why I Love the Animal Shelter...caution use of F-bomb

I love my job, I really do. However, when I'm at my job there are people who think it's perfectly acceptable to call 911 just tell me I'm a "worthless fucking bitch".

When I go to the animal shelter, I've got dogs who are VERY happy to see me. Today, Vince, jumped straight up in the air just to give me a kiss on the cheek. BTW, Vince, is a pitbull and an absolute sweetie, so no bad talking the pitbulls.

I HATE being sick

Seems like about all I've done in 2011 is be sick. It started end of January and lasted three weeks. Then Friday afternoon it started up again. By Saturday morning I was so miserable, I was awake at 4am, my head felt 4 times it's normal size, and I was seriously trying to cough up a lung. My lovely husband ran to the store and got me some DayQuil...and it knocked me out. I took it at 7am & was asleep about 7:30am...slept until 3pm. Gregg gave me another dose at 4pm & I was out like a light again! I thought this stuff wasn't supposed to make you sleepy!

But I hardly ever take anything stronger than aspirin or ibuprofen, so I have a very low tolerance to medication. I've been known to be knocked out by regular Sudafed...before they screwed it up because of the freaking meth cooks.

So, I'm just under a week with round two. It better not 3 weeks again. I'm really not good at being sick. I'm cranky, mean, short tempered, and will snap at everyone-and that's a good sick day. Poor Gregg & the kids, I really feel bad. I don't mean to be this way, but it's like all my filters are turned off & everything irritates the liver out of me, engage mouth & instant cranky.
Last night was not a good sick night & I was whiney & cry babyish...I really hate when I'm like that. I don't know how hypochondriacs do it, I can't imagine wanting to be sick on purpose.