Goodbye, Kaia

Today we said goodbye to our beautiful little furbaby. We love you, Kaia!

Our little furbaby

This week has proved to be a little more emotional than we were prepared for. Kaia went in to the vet on Monday morning after not eating or drinking for a few days. She was quite lethargic. They determined that she was having bowel issues again, and this time had to sedate her to treat her. The vet confirmed that Kaia has megacolon, which is fairly common in older cats, but is odd to see in a 3-year-old. Megacolon is where the nerves and the muscles in the colon basically stop functioning properly. Unfortunately, there is no cure for this condition, only a daily treatment. We would have to give Kaia medicine by mouth every day for the rest of her life, and even that provides no guarantee that she won't still require several trips to the vet each year to keep her system moving properly. Not to mention that Kaia is not a fan of any of these medicines that "cats just love", so a daily regimen of cornering her and forcing her to take medicine is certainly not our first choice.

While we were debating our options for her, Kaia did not recover properly from her sedation, so she went back to the vet today for fluids and an appetite stimulant. As hard as it is, we've both begun to realize that it isn't fair to Kaia to put her through this for years on end. Having said that, however, we are a little selfish and are hoping we can at least have our furbaby back to her old self and at home for a few days so our last memories with her are not of her being sick and reclusive. The vet is going to keep Kaia overnight tonight to see how she progresses. We will know in the morning if we can take her home for a few days, or if its simply time to let her go.

Its amazing how quickly our animals become so precious in our lives. We brought Kaia home from the shelter in the spring of 2006, just a few months after we were married. She was only 6 months old at the time. To us she will always be our first "baby". On the first day we brought her home she promptly ran behind the fridge in our apartment and climbed inside a small nook behind it. Justin was at work so I had to pull out the fridge by myself and pry her out. When she was only a few weeks old Kaia got curious and starting snooping around a plastic grocery sack that still had a few items in it. The handle of the bag caught around her neck, spooking her, and causing her to dash under the couch. Unfortunately, the items in the bag wouldn't fit under the couch and Kaia was promptly clothes-lined around the neck. Ever since that day she has HATED plastic grocery bags.

Its hard to accept that we will probably have to let her go while she is still so young.

Busy week

Whew! Now that we have a little down time at the end of our eventful week perhaps we can share some of the details:

1. Justin's hand surgery: Justin went in for a minor hand surgery last Monday morning to have what the doctor thought was a ganglion cyst removed from between the thumb and index finger on his left hand. What we had thought would be a simple procedure actually turned out to require that Justin be put under anesthesia. Fortunately, we had him home and on the couch by noon the same day, keeping his "club" hand elevated.

The doctor has since determined that it wasn't a cyst after all, but a mass of the blood vessels (forgive me for not finding the proper medical term and correct spelling on webmd.com). Justin is healing fine and got his "club" exchanged for a simple splint on Friday, which he will have to wear for a few weeks. We are both quite happy he didn't have to do an actual cast since we had a hard enough time functioning for just five days with only three working hands between the two of us. But we've still got two lessons left of our western swing and two-step class on Sunday nights, so we'll see how he holds up for all that twisting and hand-holding, especially with the stitches still in his hand for another week.

2. Hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time! Even though Justin was still drugged up after his surgery on Monday, he still managed to accompany me to this month's OB appointment on Monday afternoon. At our appointment four weeks ago the doctor tried three different times to hear the baby's heartbeat, but to no avail. We weren't worried as we were assured that at just 11 weeks it can still be difficult to find the heartbeat since the baby is so tiny and has to be in just the right position. But we were definitely ready to hear it this time, and the nurse found it right away. What a beautiful sound!! I had told Justin ahead of time that I thought I might cry when I heard it, but as it turns out all I could do was laugh out of pure joy. Of course all that laughing made it a little difficult for the nurse to get a 15 second count on the heartbeat. Whoops! But Baby Gimlin had a solid heartbeat at 140 beats/min. AND, we scheduled our ultrasound for our next appointment, so...ON DECEMBER 17TH WE FIND OUT THE BABY'S SEX!! I will be 20 weeks along at that point. We are quite excited to know if its a boy or girl and to be able to start shopping. Okay, I'M ready to start shopping. :)

3. Celebrating our 3rd Anniversary:

On Wednesday we celebrated our third anniversary with a nice dinner out. Its still hard to believe that three years have flown by so quickly.

4. Kaia: We are still having issues with our little furbaby, Kaia. I will spare you the details as it has not been a fun experience in the way of clean-up. Much to my delight we got our carpets professionally cleaned on Tuesday, but that just means that Kaia is confined to the non-carpeted areas until we find a solution for her. The vet has tried a few different options, but none of them seems to be working. We are starting to worry that we might have to put her down, which is heartbreating to even consider since she is our first "baby" and she is only three years old. But this weekend she isn't eating and has been sleeping pretty much non-stop, which has us quite concerned again. We are thinking to try a new vet this week to get a second opinion.

~Other than that, we are looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving at our house again this year, so we are busy with preparations. And the Alaska girl in me is eagerly awaiting our first snow of the season - its just not the holidays without it.