A Farewell to my Stevie Cat (and an important PSA)

After five and a half years of being my best friend, our kitty, Señor Stevie Nicks, succumbed to heart disease*.

If I had known it was coming I would have taken the time to have a few more days with him to do all the lovey things people do:

Chasing butterflies

Spinning in a field of flowers

 

Drinking milkshakes together

Going for boat rides in Central Park

Snuggling at home

   

But he was sick... and scared, and we lost him so suddenly. He was barely showing any signs of illness, still eating and playful, sleeping with his butt in our faces, drinking milkshakes, and rowing boats, but then he was gone just moments after getting him to the vet, leaving me and Mike shocked and devastated. I don't know how I have managed my whole life to avoid the up-close death of a pet with as many as I've had. It's a really horrible concept and I don't know who came up with it but I would like to unsubscribe, RIGHT NOW.  In the end, I am glad he chose us and we did everything we could to give him the best life possible. I love him so much and I will never forget my sweet Stevie cat.

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*Stevie died of cardiac arrest from an enlarged heart. He had a grain allergy, to the point that he couldn't even eat poultry that was fed grain or he would itch terribly and barf/poop/gain lots of weight. We found him a grain-free food that had all the nutrition he needed to keep him healthy, in theory. Unfortunately, I am finding now, much too late, that grain-free pet food currently on the market seems to contain some ingredient that might interfere with taurine uptake, which cats (and dogs) need to avoid heart damage. The FDA is investigating this, but there are things you can do in the meantime.

Please, if you are feeding your pet a grain-free diet have their taurine levels tested IMMEDIATELY (or as soon as you can afford to).

If they don't have allergies, stop feeding them a commercial grain-free diet. If they do, please, get their taurine tested and consult with a vet on how best to proceed. Once they have symptoms, which, in Stevie's case was only abdominal breathing, it is often too late, but the damage can be reversed if it is caught early enough with taurine supplementation. No one should go through what we're going through now, losing our pet so young, so please, share this information so every cat lives long enough to replace us as the dominant species on the planet.