My baby boy, just 4 years old

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LittlePenBigHeart
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My baby boy, just 4 years old

Post by LittlePenBigHeart »

On Monday my our gorgeous baby boy, Dylan, died very suddenly, without any sort of warning and it's struck us to the core. We'd been worrying about why he hadn't come in for a couple of hours, calling him out the front and back of the house a few times, and at about half 8, I started to feel that niggling sense that something was very wrong. My husband went out to check the back garden and found Dylan on the patio, where he'd collapsed and died some time earlier. It was a huge shock and utterly crushing because our cats mean everything to us and Dylan was my husband's baby.

Having lost a maine coon-cross 4 years earlier to HCM, we think Dylan died of sudden heart failure. He was a ragdoll-cross that we adopted after our maine coon died in 2016, and part of the reason we took him and his sister (currently snoozing on my lap) was that the RSPCA took their mother in while she was still pregnant, having been rescued from a house with 34 other cats, and the risk of health problems for them both was high. We figured we were aware and suitable equipped to deal with cats with health problems, while others might not have been, so we took them both as soon as possible after they were weaned, and we have done everything we can - given them the best of everything.

Sadly, Dylan was always a slightly sickly cat. He developed feline asthma at just over 1, when we redid the kitchen, and during testing for that they found he had a 'pronounced' heart murmur. He recovered well but his respiration rate was never as low as it should have been. Last year he developed an eye ulcer that took 4 months to heal, followed by another one early this year that, thank goodness, took just 2 weeks. At the time he passed he was a happy, playful, affectionate, greedy little boy, whose only potential symptoms were that he was sick a couple of times last week (this happened often anyway because he got hairballs) and sleeping a bit more (which the other two are doing also because it's cold).

I know we always knew this might happen but...it's always a shock, isn't it? It's always cruel and unfair and although it's never long enough no matter how old they are, four years was far less time than we ever thought we'd get with him.

Rest in peace, Mr Dylan.
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Kay
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Re: My baby boy, just 4 years old

Post by Kay »

it is always a shock when they leave us suddenly, though you can never prepare completely to say that final goodbye

all we can do is love them and care for them while they are with us, and mourn them when they have to leave us

but it is hard
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Mollycat
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Re: My baby boy, just 4 years old

Post by Mollycat »

So sorry for your loss. If there is any comfort it sounds like he couldn't have known much about it. Four years to us is nothing when we know they have so much more potential, but remember for Dylan time was pretty meaningless. He was loved and well cared for, he was happy and he didn't suffer. The curse of being human is the many furry friends that will come and go from our lives, each leaving us a better person than they found us, loving more deeply, each with some unique lesson or guidance or message for us at a special time when we needed exactly that. Be kind to yourself.
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Ruth B
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Re: My baby boy, just 4 years old

Post by Ruth B »

I'm so sorry to read this, and no matter the age, or expectation it is never easy.

Like has been said, remember he had 4 wonderful years with you, full of love and care, you may think of it as only 4 years, but to him it was a lifetime, and no one can wish for more than a lifetime of love and care.

RIP Dylan, you obviously had a wonderful life, even if for us it was too short.
alanc
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Re: My baby boy, just 4 years old

Post by alanc »

Very sad to read of your loss. Having lost my Badger suddenly to cancer when he was just 5, I know how devastated you are.
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