DK GALADRIEL GYLDENLØVE

HCM, PKD, HD & PL: Normal  on 10.03.04

NFO fs 09 (Smoke Tortie/White)

d.o.b. 05.22.96
d. o. d. 12.01.04

Aside from her telling my studs that they should mind their own business, because you do not want to mess with her, nothing else happened. She decided she was going to live here no matter what and nobody could complain about that, especially not the other cats.

She has settled in so nicely that I decided that she should have kittens, which she had in November 98, and they didn´t turn out half bad.

It was MY plan to mate her in the fall of 2000, with either Coco Island`s Leo or IC Tilia Nova`s Ingjalf.

The reason why i had doubts as to who I wanted to breed her to, was that in 1999 I intended to breed her to Ch Kianda`s X-tase Boy but she rejected him so strongly, that I had to breed her to someone els. Therefor, she was breed to Ingjalf again, which resulted in some very nice kittens - just as nice as the litter they made the year before. Of course I would like to see what kind of kittens she can make, when bred to other males, so I would like to try to mate her to a new stud and hope that she would be more acceptable of him.

Galadriel was ready for another male, but unfortunately Leo was to young to know what to do with this female that kept following him around the room, screaming all the time:-) Therefor Ingjalf, the sire of her first two litters, also had the honour of fathering the third litter. But at least I now could hope that another male could breed her the year after:-)

And the lucky stud was Quali-kat`s Aladin! Even though I had chosen Aladin as father of Galadriels future kittens, things just doesn´t always work out the way I plan them to do:-) Unfortunately Galadriel got a pyrometra after her visit with Alaldin, and after several attempts, and trying to let her breed with several of my studs, she won't become pregnant:-(

Galadriel will be neutered in Fall 2004 and then I will show her once she has recovered from the surgery.

Update December 1st. 2004:

It is with great sorrow in my heart, that I have to tell, that we will never more be able to see or touch Galadriel again.... the plan was that I would go to England on December 1st., and therefor I gave all the cats their monthly check-up the night before, meaning that I cut their claws, checked their teeth and ears, plus gave them a flea treatment. Galadriel was the last that came in from the run, at about 6 pm. The next morning, when we were carrying the cats out to the run, she was lying in a cat cradle in one of the climbing posts and when I toke her out, it all felt wet, including herself! When I put her down on the floor, she could hardly stand on her hindlegs and her eyes looked as if she was far away.

After that everything happened SO fast and after a short visit at our vet, where 30 ml of fluid was injected under her skin, we drow to KVL, the veterinarian university. On the way I managed to call a friend who is a student there and asked her to meet us, because she might be able to help us once we were there and she had seen Galadriel only 3 days prior, where she wasn't sick at all!

Galadriel was in shok when we arrived and, to make a very long story short, she was admitted to the IV-unit and they told us to go home until further notice. My friend assured me that the vet that was looking after her was a fighter and that she would fight for Galadriels life. The trip to England was of course canceled.

We then went to the airport, because this was also the day where David would come home from England and while we were waiting for him to be cleared through customs, we got a call from KVL, they would like us to come back as quickly as possible.

When we arrived we got the worst possible message: It would be considered to be cruelty to keep her alive, because after the ultrasound of her kidneys, extended blood tests etc., they could clearly see that her kidneys weren't working at all! She wouldn't be able to pull through this and it would be best to let her go......

We went outside to talk about it, should we let her go?, what if there was still hope?, she was so healthy the day before???, how could they be sure?

I asked to see Galadriel and we were let in to the intensive care unit..... she had big, black, dialated pupils and there were NO contact what so ever, when I put my hand in front of her nose..... the ability to smell is the last thing that disappears before....... well before we die....

We gave them our permission to let her have peace, but under the condition that I was allowed to hold her in my arms while she passed away.... the next few seconds are impossible to describe, because it really took very few seconds, before what was the remaining part of Galadriel was totally gone.....

The vet said something about a post mortem and even though we would have prefered to take Galadriel home with us, it was more important to have an autopsy done, so we could find out what had happened to her. We were told that it could take up to 4 weeks(!) before we would get a final answer to what had happened, but we still went ahead with it.....

After we returned home we were both in shock and even though it was nice to have David home with us again, it was very hard to feel happy about it.......

The day after I got a call from the vet, who told me that they had had a lok inside Galadriel. She had a condition called *cronical bad kidneys*, which means that her kidneys have been funtioning very poorly for at least 3 month. She was scanned just 2 months earlier in Sweden, but an ultrasound is *just* a two dimensionel picture of a three dimensionelt organ, and her kidneys looked much worse at the autopsy, than the pictures from the ultrasound taken the day before showed. Galadriel had been sterillised 2 weeks prior to her kidney failing completely and the procedure CAN have tiped her already bad kidneys into failure, so they would work until they simply couldn't anymore. If the vet who sterillised her had taken a blood and urin sample, before the operation, and had the tests shown that her kidneys weren't to good, she could have used a more kidney friendly anestecia and given her fluid while operating her, but it is not sure that that would have given her more than a few weeks extra, or we could have chosen NOT to have her neutered and kept her on the pill for the rest of her life.

We will get the final results of the autopsy, when the pathologist has had a look at her and as mention above, it can take as long as 4 weeks. We were both very gratefull for the huge work the vets did at KVL when they tried to save her, and the very thorough guidense we got during this terrible ordeal. Their humane and caring way they were to us as owners was also very nice and gentle all the way through.

And the lesson we have learned from this, the hard way, is that starting from now, we will have all our adult cats at age 6 or more, screened every year, either when they have their yearly health check and vacciantions or when they are being tested for HCM. Screening means that a blood and urine sample is taken from teh cat, and then the vet will look at the different values for the kidneys, liver, etc., just to see how the internal organs is functioning. It is very important that the vet takes BOTH a urine AND a blood sample, because the correct values for the kidneys, can't always be seen when you just take a blood sample. Unfortunately a cat can hide for a long time that they have cronical ill kidneys and suddenly become as ill as Galadriel, without having anything to cause this except that the kidneys just can't work anymore.

Galadriel, it has taken me almost a week, just to say good bye to you, and I haven't said completely good bye yet. You are missed and it is a small comfort to me that you are now together with your mother some where...... every day since we lost you, I have been looking at your beautiful daugther and her children, because I wanted to hold on to you for as long as possible, but I know in my heart that I will have to say my final good bye to you very soon......