# A sad French newbie



## Cybermoukette (Jun 8, 2005)

Hello everyone, I've just joined and thought I'd introduce myself a bit :

My name is Marie-Hélène, I'm 42 and I'm French. I live in a big city next to Paris. I usually work as a trilingual secretary (Spanish/English/French) but am unfortunately unemployed for the moment.

I am married with no kids. Our only baby was our darling female cat Pitoune (pronounce "Peetoon" in English) but she passed away on the 20th of April. She had Feline Infectious Peritonitis. I suppose you all know here that terrible disease. It is incurable, there is no shot here in France to avoid it and all actual treatments are inefficients. The cat is bound to die.

What makes me sadder is that I don't know how she contracted the FIP. She would not go out as we live on the 4th floor and she had never been in contact with other cats.

I had taken her to the vet's on the 12th of April for a dental tartar removal and in the afternoon, she came back in quite a bad shape. She seemed shocked, all shaky. I thought it was the rest of the anestheasia but on the next day, when I saw that she hadn't recovered yet, I started worrying.

During a whole week, we took her to the vet's every day because each day we would notice that nothing was getting better. The vet put her perfusions on so that she would not get dehydrated (she would no longer eat nor drink and was getting skinnier and weaker every day). The vet thought she had caught a virus like flu for us and tried to treat her for that. But his diagnosis was wrong all the way.

Finally, on the last day (on the 20th/4) , we took her to the vet's once more and they (they are two vets sharing the office) decided to have some x-rays done. That's when they saw that she had a pleural effusion : her rib cage was full of water. We could no longer see her heart and barely the ribs. And the disease test was positive. As our cat was really starting to suffer, we decided to put an end to her sufferings and asked the vet to put her to sleep. Anyway, there was nothing else left to do.

The vet told us that she might have gotten this disease in February when we brought her for a small operation. He explained that there is no 0% risk in a clinic and that even when they are very careful, an animal can fair well catch a disease.

Things are slightly better now but in the beginning, I thought I'd never recover from her loss. I would cry every day on her. We loved her so much. She was almost 11 years old and I found it so unfair that she would die so young. She was so sweet and cute, she didn't deserve this. We have no children and we loved her maybe even more, giving her all the affection we would have given to a child. In fact, yes, she was as a child to us. This might surprise some but we treated her so.


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## kitkat (Sep 22, 2003)

Welcome Marie-Hélène. I'm sorry to hear about your cat, I hope soon you will be able to rescue another one even though they can never take the place of your other cat


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## Zalensia (Aug 25, 2003)

welcome to the forum, sorry about your cat


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## dmcwlvssr (Apr 24, 2005)

welcome! My heart goes out to you! HUGS!!! RIP sweet Pitoune!


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## Lori (Jun 8, 2003)

Welcome to the forum, Cybermoukette. I am so sorry about your cat.


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## Mitts & Tess (Sep 4, 2004)

Im so sorry this happened to Pitoune. 
She is running free now and in no pain 
but I know you must miss her. I hope
Pitoune sends someone soon to take help heal 
your heart. Welcome to the Forum


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## nikako (Apr 28, 2005)

*Cybermoukette*, I'm sorry for your loss! 

It sounds like the vet's fault. Can you find another vet?


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## Cybermoukette (Jun 8, 2005)

nikako said:


> *Cybermoukette*, I'm sorry for your loss!
> 
> It sounds like the vet's fault. Can you find another vet?


Well, I know he did all his best to save her. He tried everything he could to make her be better but I guess he was far from thinking she had that terrible disease. I don't put the blame on him because I was able to see how much he tried to save her.

His only mistake was that he took too long before taking x-rays. But even so, it wouldn't have changed many things. With that disease, the fact of knowing that Pitoune had FIP on the first day or on the 7th day wouldn't have changed much : we wouldn't have been able to save her anyway.

The only thing is that if we had known she had that disease sooner, we would have asked the vet to put her to sleep before and it would have avoided her pain.

He liked Pitoune very much because he knew her for years, he was even a bit moved when he would see her because she was so particularly tiny compared to other cats (she weighed 4 pounds).

I still believe in him and I say to myself that after all everyone can make a mistake. His mistake did not cost my cat's life because there was nothing we could do about it anyway.

If he had not treated my cat well and had let her be gained by a serious disease that could have been avoided, that would be different. If he had lacked professionalism which would have costed my kitty's life, then I would have changed. But it's not the case and during all the time he treated her, I could see how upset he was to notice that Pitoune would not get better through the days.


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## Stanky (Feb 28, 2005)

Welcome to the forum.
Sorry to hear about your cats passing








I do not have any children, my cats are my kids. I can not imagine how hurt I would feel if one of them passed away. My heart goes out to you.


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## Jeanie (Jun 18, 2003)

I'm so very sorry you lost your little friend. I hope the day comes when you feel able to find another special kitten. I'm so glad you've joined us. If you would like to, we have a special forum for tributes. It's called The Rainbow Bridge.


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## Cybermoukette (Jun 8, 2005)

I wanted to thank all of you for welcoming me in such a friendly way  It really touched me to see how kind you people are and to find someone who understands what the loss of a pet can represent. Some people don't understand why we can have so much pain for "just an animal" :| I really appreciate it and in some way it makes me feel better.

I am glad to have made new friends who share my feelings and support me. Yes, I'm sure I'm going to like it here. Thank you so much once again


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## ForJazz (Dec 30, 2003)

Of course it isn't silly that you would feel that way over "just a cat." I loved my Jazz as much as I possibly could. She felt like my child to me. I know how you feel, and it's not silly at all. Bless your kitty.


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## kelly4582 (Apr 10, 2005)

hi! and welcome! sorry to hear about your cat, that really sucks. well look foward to posting w/ ya


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