Out with the old and in with the new

Its been awhile since I've posted about Earl and Grimmy.

Those of you long time readers might remember that Earl is my so called "four letter word."  It is with a heavy heart that I say Earl and Grimmy are no more.

We had to put Earl down in May. He developed some sort of bladder crystals. No one seems to have truly pinpointed the cause of bladder crystals but the vet told me that it's very treatable among cats.

So I spent $500 getting his bladder unblocked at the vet. I spent another $500 or $600 for him to be monitored for 4 days at the vet. I spent $50 on a special bag of cat food to change Earls diet.  After one more x ray it was apparent Earl had a very thick layer of crystals in his bladder and he would need an operation to scrape the crystals out of his bladder, amongst other surgical procedures befitting a male cat with this condition.

In order to have the further surgeries done the price was $2,000 or more. The veterinarian kept telling me it was treatable and I believe them because I know of other cats who have this issue and their owners keep them alive. What I didn't realize was when the vet says the condition is treatable they mean it is if I have gold lined pockets or if I I am a veterinarian myself.

So, the simple decision was to put him down not that was the decision I wanted to make. If I had the $2,000 I truly would have spent it on him because I loved that cat. And I even pulled out a loan from my 401k to do it but the funds just weren't coming in at the times that I needed them. 

Now I'm thinking it worked out for the best because Grimmy came down with the same condition. There was no way I could afford to do the procedure to both cats. Grimmy was Earl's brother so I half expected him to come down with the same thing although I had hoped he wouldn't. Sadly we had to put him down on Sunday.

When we did put Grimmy down, I planned on rescuing two kittens from the animal shelter because I didn't feel it was fair to ask my young children ages 10, 7, 4, 2 to deal with this much grief in such a short span of time.

I have attached pictures of both Grimmy and Earl on their last day and pictures of the new kittens we got. The black and white one being Domino and the tabby striped cat, his name is George.