Our Baby Girl...

Losing a pet is hard. 

Losing a pet that you found with a broken leg in your work parking lot, a year and a half ago, that you brought home because you didn't know who it belonged too and immediately fell in love with it because it was the sweetest and cutest little kitten that loved to snuggle and just took to you instantly like you were always meant to be together...is heartbreaking. 

Two weeks ago on Friday, October 18th, Ty and I had to make the hardest decision to put our youngest kitty, Izzy, down. 

When I found Izzy in February 2012, she was was a little bitty kitty in my work parking lot with a finger splint on her front leg, dragging it along. 

It was cold and she ran right up to me and purred when I picked her up. She was so sweet. I knew she had to belong to someone. So I took her to the vet to see if by some crazy chance she had a microchip and we could find out who her owners were, but no luck. They took the finger splint off and said that someone probably saw that she had a broken leg and thought that would help. It didn't, so they took it off. 

I didn't know what to do with her and couldn't imagine just letting her go back outside, so of course, I brought her home. Lexie and Baxter didn't really know what to think of her and Ty told me not to get attached. 

Too late. She was my little snuggle kitty that I've always wanted and we just bonded. She felt safe with me and I loved her already. 

Luckily, the next morning I wake up to Ty snuggling with her on the couch and I knew she (or he, we didn't know at that point if she was a boy or girl yet) was here to stay. 

I went ahead and put an ad in the paper and actually had a few calls, but no one described her so then we became a family with 3 cats. Yikes. 

But I didn't mind. She was meant to be a Porter. Izzy Porter, she became. Little Izzabell. Izzy Girl. Izzabell Jones. Our little baby. (Once I took her to the vet and found out she was a she.)

After taking her to a new vet, she saw Dr. Willis and she x-rayed her little arm and showed me that it was broken above the elbow and it had healed back overlapping. She didn't have any feeling in it and the nerves were dead, she said the best thing for her would be to amputate. I hated that idea, but after having her about a month and her getting a few sores on that arm, I knew we needed to go ahead with it. So when she got spayed, we went ahead and had that done as well. 

 I probably had a harder time with it then she did. Everything went great and I got to bring her home 2 days later. Thank goodness! I missed that little baby!!!

 When Izzy had her surgeries the vet said that her liver values were really high and that she also had a heart murmer. She wasn't worried about the murmur but did want to get her liver values down. We changed her diet and put her on some medicine. I would take her back to the vet every few weeks or months to check them again. After a few months, they were back to normal. Yay! 

 She acted like a total normal cat, just with 3 legs. You would never even know that she only had 3 when she ran. She just had a little gimp when she walked, but it was the cutest gimp you ever did see. 

She never was too far from me when I was home. And Ty too. She loved us, that's for sure. 

And claimed anything that was laying on the floor as her own. 

She would lick you all day long if you let her. 

 She was my little shadow. And I could never be in the bathroom alone. haha

Big brother loved her too.

Sweetest thing ever. I LOVED when she would snuggle on my chest and touch my face. 

Our bed was her bed. More specifically, WE were her bed. She loved to snuggle up on your neck when you slept. She would purr so loud and fall right to sleep. It was the cutest.

Caught her mid yawn. Hilarious!

Miss those big eyeballs. 

The week before she died, she started not acting like herself. She was sleeping way more than normal and I wasn't really seeing her eat much. She was due to go to the vet to have her liver values checked since it had been 6 months, so I called on Wednesday and got her in Thursday morning.

I told Dr. Willis what was going on with her and she said she did have a fever and wanted to run some tests on her. I went on to work and she called me around lunch saying she had some sort of infection, but wasn't sure what it was. She put her on antibiotics and wanted to keep her overnight.

Friday mid-morning I called and she said her temp was down, so I could pick her up. I went after work to get her and got her home. 

She seemed better, but not completely back to her normal Izzy-self. We snuggled a little on the couch and she started to purr. I thought everything was good, so Ty and I left for about 2 hours. 

When we got home, she was having hard time breathing. I'd seen her little chest move quickly before and it never lasted long. This wasn't stopping. It eventually just got too bad, so I called the vet and met the on-call vet at the office around 10pm. 

After taking her back to put her on oxygen and the vet coming out to talk to me, I had to call Ty and tell him to come meet me. We had the hardest decision to make. We got to go back and see her one more time and kiss her and love on her and tell her goodbye one last time. 

It was awful. 

She had fluid on her lungs and nothing could clear it completely. They think she might have had FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. It came on so suddenly and we had to make a decision to take the pain away and end her suffering. There really wasn't any other option. It was the hardest thing we've ever had to do and we miss her more than we ever thought possible. 

She was the best little kitty in the world and some days I still can't believe that she's really gone. 

I know when I found her that day, it was for a reason, but I have yet to figure out why she didn't get to stay with us longer. I hope one day I will. And I hope one day, I'll get to snuggle with her again.

We love you baby girl. And we miss you every day.