Death in Catland

Cloudy is dead.  It happened suddenly, this morning.

Cloudy was the youngest male from the colony.

This morning, I clean litter boxes in the second bedroom, he's peaking out at me, from under the bed.  He's shy but playful.   He lets, or did let, me pet him.

An hour later, I was drinking coffee, morning chores done, and I hear a horrible sound, like a low pitched shriek, a moan of immense volume, horror and distress. I was up in a second, frantically searching for the source.

I find him, laying out under the bed.  I am confused because only an hour before, he was running around.  How could this be.  Fluid is coming from his mouth.  He can't move his hind quarters, but he is crying out in pain.  I pull him out.  He's already cold.  His rectum is pure white.  I know that means no blood or no oxygen.

I think he's fallen, broken his spine, or a blood vessel and is bleeding out.  I wrap him in a blanket with a warming bottle and grab my phone, call Heartland, ask if I can rush him over to be euthanized, because he's in pain, thrashing, going into seizures.

They have no one there euthanasia certified.  She tries to call someone who is, calls me back, says she left messages, commiserates.

But by this time, he's in death throw seizures.  It's horrible to watch, but I know he likely feels nothing now.  From the time of the scream, until death claimed him, maybe ten minutes passed.  Time stood still in this house. And for me.  Cats ran, panicked, frantic and scared.  The low pitched scream was one from a nightmare.  Silence has now descended on the house as my cats and Cloudy's family, grapple with their own fears.

I call Keni, totally traumatized.  She asks if it is a young male, describes cleaning at Odd Cat Out, hearing a terrible shriek/moan like that, goes over "says no fighting now" and discovers a young male, dead, still warm.  Says her mother had the same thing happen to a young male she adopted and she lives right across the street from a vet clinic.  He died before she could run him over there.  Same thing, fine one minute, the next, the shriek, then convulsions, then death.

I had a young male die here once.  I wasn't here when it happened.  I was off helping the neuter scooter in Pendleton fix 400 cats in four days.  A pet sitter found him dead, laid out.

The young males and heart defects, seems so common, but it is so hard.  Keni says at least he had a safe warm place with his family to live for a few months.

At least there is that.

Goodbye Cloudy.  Your life was short and you never had it easy.

Death refused to pass this house by and when denied Electra, with a wicked arrogant rapid vengeance, claimed another.

We never know what each day will hold.

Hug your kids and your kitties.  We have only this moment.

Someone in the comments suggest this as cause, and this is exactly how he presented. 

Read about it here.