Three weeks ago, I found Kiki abandoned in a park while walking my dog. I brought her home and she was immediately the sweetest, most affectionate little baby. She ran around the room playing, she loved every toy you gave her, she was a Serial toe-biter, she loved to cuddle and be pet, and she had so much to say if you weren’t fast enough putting her bowl down or sharing your own meal with her.

Two days ago, she was much sleepier than usual. She’s usually out and about playing and looking for mischief, but she spent most of her day curled up on the couch. She was still demanding her food with the same vigor, trying to join in all of our meals, and cuddling up to us at every opportunity. She’d even follow us around to get us to sit and cuddle with her again if we got up for any reason. Other than being a little sleepy, which we didn’t think anything of with her being a growing baby, nothing seemed wrong. She was eating, drinking, using the litter box, no noticeable grimace, and acting otherwise normal. 

She slept on my chest all night like she always did, and I noticed while petting her that she had a small, soft lump under her jaw. We agreed we’d keep an eye on it and bring it up at her next vet appointment early next week.

Yesterday, she was still sleepy, but continued to get up to eat, drink, use the litter box, and following me around to give her opinions on me leaving after petting her. She still climbed all over me while I put her food together. She still walked around the apartment exploring and even discovered watching cars out of the window for the first time yesterday. In the evening, she stopped leaving her spot on the bed.

My boyfriend went in to check on her and noticed that she was grimacing and had started breathing very quickly and periodically making small crackly sounds. Our other two cats had been somewhat sickly babies, so we thought we were dealing with another standard upper respiratory infection. We brought her to the emergency vet, we thought just to be safe, joking about bracing for spending $500 for a Tylenol. She had even gotten up to take a drink of water while we were on the phone with the vet’s office to tell them we’d be bringing her in.

Once we got there, things were quickly getting worse as we waited. Her breathing was becoming more and more labored and she stopped wanting to be right in my lap, opting to put herself in the back of her carrier. When we were finally able to be seen, they found she had a fever and wanted to give her x-rays to check for pneumonia since she was sounding a little crackly. Even listening with a stethoscope, they didn’t think she sounded too wet. I mentioned the lump I’d felt the night before and they said it was likely a lymph node swollen from trying to fight off whatever this was.

It took a while for them to come back, but things got flipped completely upside down for us. They told us that she had what was either a fungal infection or cancer throughout her whole lungs. They told us that we could try to hospitalize her and treat it as a fungal infection, but she more than likely would not respond and even if she did, it may take months to over a year for her to fight it off. In a matter of hours Kiki had gone from our spunky little baby to barely moving and sounding absolutely horrible. We couldn’t force her to suffer through treatments without us in a hospital when we knew we were being told she would almost certainly not make it.

She spent her last moments cuddling up with us again. She didn’t want to leave my lap and climbed in even with the catheter in her tiny little arm. They put her to sleep right there in my arms. This isn’t the first pet I’ve lost in my life, but I’ve never been so blind-sided and devastated by walking out with an empty carrier before. This is my boyfriend’s first pet loss and he is absolutely broken.

We just don’t understand why it happened so fast. If it was so widespread and severe, why was she acting so normal for so long? Why weren’t there any signs when we brought her to start her vaccines and check her over? We’re just completely in shock.

I had so little time with her, but she wanted to be right on top of me wherever I was. She was the sweetest kitten I’ve ever had and I’ve never had a cat “choose me” the way that she did. She slept on top of me all night every night and would meow for pets if she noticed I woke up even for a second in the morning. I’m so heartbroken. Apologies for the long rant, I just am trying to process and it’s really hard right now. I’ve never had to put down a little baby like this.

Rest in peace, my sweet Kiki girl.

If anybody knows somebody who takes commissions for memorial art, I would really like to get something made to remember my little baby. I just hope we made the right choice for her quality of life. I’m so devastated.

We had to put our 10 week old kitten to sleep unexpectedly. I am devastated.