Goodbye for Now, Precious Betsy

Our darling Betsy - she loved to talk and wasn't the least bit hesitant about dispensing advice. No matter the subject, Betsy was sure to have something to say about it.

She adored her brother George and he adored her right back.

Betsy loved Christmas and was always eager to lend a 'helping' paw. Of course, her idea of 'helping' didn't always match ours!

Her favorite window perch to watch the birds from was the third floor guest room. They would have long conversations, and I have a feeling it's a good thing that I couldn't decipher what they were saying to each other. I'm pretty sure it wasn't polite...

She loved to play with her favorite catnip sockie, tossing it into the air and rolling around with it. The sockie was the one toy she wouldn't share with George. Betsy was a treasure, perfect to me in every way but one: she always had to have the last word!

Opie and Betsy

Opie Furgus 9-4-97 -- 4-12-11

Betsy Ross 7-4-01 -- 4-14-11

Last week was horrible. Opie passed away on Tuesday, Betsy on Thursday. Both passed away peacefully at the vet's office, with their dad and myself holding them as their souls stepped from this world into the next.

I will give them each a post of their own later, its too hard to write about this now.

Betsy is Home!

I took this yesterday afternoon after we brought her home, but I was just too tired to post. And you can see that little Betsy was exhausted from her ordeal, but very happy to be home!

The doctor doesn't know what the lump is on her pancreas, but she is hopeful that it will go away now that Betsy is on the right dose of Insulin for her Diabetes. She gets a shot at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. every day. If it doesn't go away...well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. She sees the doctor again this Thursday, but (hopefully) won't have to stay overnight.

And, amazingly, Betsy seems to feel a whole lot better already! She's eating well, followed us upstairs to sleep with us at last night, and is back to bossing everybody around. She doesn't even feel the shot because the diabetic needle is so tiny, and that is a real blessing. If they hurt a lot and caused her to run from us once she figured out what was going on, I don't think it would be possible to catch her. As it is, I pet her and give her the shot at the same time and she just purrs!

I got the best Valentine's Day present ever.....just one day early! :) :) :)

Betsy

This is Betsy, and if anyone has any healing thoughts or good wishes to send her way she could certainly use them.

Today we found out she has Diabetes, plus some sort of lump on her pancreas. The vet doesn't know right now what might be the cause of the lump.

Betsy is staying overnight, possibly all weekend, at the hospital to have repeated tests to see what the appropriate amount of Insulin would be for her.

She's never had to stay at the vet overnight and I know she must be terrified. She is a little feral cat we adopted when she was a kitten; my husband literally snatched her from the jaws of a raccoon 10 years ago when she was only 5 weeks old.

I don't think I'll get much sleep tonight. I wish animal hospitals had the same options as hospitals for humans, then at least I could go sit in a chair beside her.

Anyway, even if you don't post them here, any and all healing, good thoughts and wishes for Betsy will greatly appreciated.

It's MINE!

That's what Betsy is still saying to me 12 hours after she found a piece of broiled chicken on the kitchen floor this morning. I don't normally let the cats or dogs into the kitchen, so I can only assume that the chicken fell off the plate last night after dinner. She zipped into the kitchen ahead of me this morning, which she does every morning, zooming around the floor once or twice, then dashing out the door. Betsy doesn't do anything slowly. But this morning, she skidded to a halt mid-zoom and started pawing frantically under the kitchen counter. Before I could get over to her, she had the chicken, holding it down with both paws and gnawing on it. I was afraid it might make her sick after being unrefrigerated for so long so I took it away from her. That sounded easy, didn't it? Well, it wasn't! As soon as I said, "Oh, Betsy, give..." she didn't even wait for me to finish the sentence but took off, chicken firmly in mouth. The fact that the piece of chicken was hanging down between her front paws didn't slow her down one bit. What slowed me down was that her siblings (canine and feline) immediately realized that she had a goodie and started chasing her, thereby getting between me and my quarry. So there I am, chasing the whole herd, all of whom can run much faster than I can, through the dining room, across the living room, through the foyer, up the stairs (and I'm really running out of steam by now), down the upstairs hallway...and Betsy reaches the end of the hallway and turns around. She turns around while I'm still standing, sides heaving, gasping desperately for air, certain cardiac arrest will occur any second, at the top of the stairs...and the whole herd turns with her and thunders back down the hallway right at me. Their paws didn't even slip once on the hardwood floor! The only thing that saved me from being knocked down the stairs by the vicious herd of galloping mountain lions and slavering wolves...er, I mean cats and dogs...was that the door to my husband's den was open and I leaped into the opening, a mere nano second ahead of my supposed-to-be-loving-children-in-fur. This brush with certain death renewed my adrenalin and I charged down the stairs after them, yelling words that probably couldn't be said here, and cornered the lot of them in the laundry room. Betsy had leapt up to a narrow ledge where I keep the soap and was gloating over her prize ("I have it and I'm not going to share, I caught it and it's MINE"), when I shoved my way through her whining siblings ("Mom said we have to share, I'm gonna tell") and snatched it from her, saying "Shame on you, shame on all of you!" Her siblings walked out with a "yeah, whatever" attitude and Betsy, my sweet little Betsy, swatted at me! Was she embarrassed by this bad behavior? Chagrined by her attempt to hit her loving human mother? Not in the least. She just stared at me and grumpily said, "Well, YOU dropped it, I caught it, it's MINE!"