Shaneeka, my Happy Sweet Girl

by Ines Moorhouse
(Boca Raton, FL United States)

Last August Shaneeka started having symptoms which could be traced to a few possibilities. I took her to one vet who recommended exploratory surgery with a biopsy. I took her to another one who recommended ultrasound with cell aspiration. I chose the latter, and the diagnosis was inconclusive. That vet then chose to treat her as if she had inflammatory bowel disease, which was one of the possible diagnoses. The Prednisone helped, but she could not be weaned off of it. Instead of sending me to a specialist, he tried Azathioprine. It turns out this can destroy the liver in both humans and animals who take it.

Shaneeka looked up with bright eyes and moved with a dainty hopsy kind of gait. She was very gymnasic and affectionate. She would stay on my lap when I read, did homework, or watched television, for hours. While I slept, she would lay down on my side and hold her balance for hours on top of my side (I usually sleep on my side). She knew me and I knew her very well.

When we met, she had been picked up as a stray and brought to a clinic to be put up for adoption and treated for hookworm. She was not very social with people, and she was scared of me. I met the woman who brought her to that clinic one day as I waited in the waiting room. It was very special to know where she found my Shaneeka.

Shaneeka walked out of her carrier and slept on my legs her last night with me. She did not have the energy to balance herself on my side, so I slept on my back. She purred. She was my cozy happy girl.

Her bilirubin was too high, she could not eat on her own, she could not use the litter box, and I had to count to twenty when I syringe fed her the baby food so that she could breath. Her red blood cell count was too low.

She is in peace. I kissed her and held her lovely face in my hands as she passed with the anesthesia. I love her.