Mammy and Noah in Germany in Jan '08


Amie feeding "coco" in Haarlem, Jan '07


Amie and Daddy sleeping on the blow up bed in the sitting room in our house in Haarlem, because some people were visiting and we only had 2 bedrooms :) Jan '06

It's hard to believe that it's only almost a week since that horrible day last Tuesday. In some ways it feels so long ago... I guess having to deal with so much emotion in a short space of time, makes time feel like it much be stretched somehow. Yet here we are almost a week to the day. I have to say that I think we're all coping better than I expected. The obvious sadness with how things turned out, is balanced in some small way by the knowledge that we really did do everything we could for him. With that in mind it's possible to begin to accept that he had his time. It may have been shorter than any of us would have liked, but it was certainly could not have been fuller of love or good times, and we'll always have fond memories of our big fat cat. We were very moved by everyone who got in touch to express their condolences.. it's nice to know there are also people in the world who know the statement 'just a cat' does not apply. As sad as it is what happened with Neo, I figure people checking this site might be hoping for some more cheerful news to look at, and since I haven't been taking new photos lately, I thought it'd be fun to put up some pictures taken back in January 06, 07 and 08.

RIP Neo 27th March 2003- 19th February 2008

I'm afraid to report that Neo died today. We went to see him at lunch time, but he wasn't getting better, and the vet said the tests had shown he had a tumour. So we all said goodbye, gave Neo a big cuddle, and they put him to sleep.

It is very strange in the house without Neo. He has been part of our lives for 5 years now, and has seen Brenda and I get together, seen Amie and Noah arrive and joined us on our move to Hamburg. He's had a good life, and it is only sad that he won't be with us on our next adventures.

Goodbye Friend.

After a few minutes I called her back... she said he was not in pain at the moment and they wew waiting till 2 for my decision. We are going to go see him to say goodbye. Perhaps he has lukemia... they might try surgery for a tumour, but i want to discuss his quality of life with the vet first

It's over

I just got off the phone to my vet. I had been phoning the clinic all morning but they weren't phoning me back. i guess they wanted someone with good english to talk to me. She said that he was deteriorating rapidly and they were running out of options.. his kidney and liver parameters were deteriorating, he was developing fluid in the stomach and possibly lungs. I told her to phone them immediately and tell them to put him to sleep. I really had thought he'd be home by tomorrow, but I guess that's just the way life goes sometimes. I can't believe he's gone

It's good news

Just off the phone to the clinic. She said Neo's temperature is up to 37.8. In cat's 39 is ok, and anything below 37 is considered a problem. His temperature the last 2 days had been 36 degrees so it's good to see it going up. He's still on a hot drip infusion to warm him up. She said he's only eating a little, and asked me what he liked to eat. I told her chicken, tinned food and no cat biscuits (I think the problem was they were giving him dry cat food). She's still waiting for the results of a blood test to check for kidney/liver damage and will phone me later today when she knows the outcome. But it certainly looks like he's holding his own. Fingers crossed he keeps getting better.

He's still alive!

Just got off the phone to the clinic. He's still alive, but his body temperature is very low so he's on a hot drip and under a red lamp. He hasn't gone to the toilet and they are waiting for him to do so so they can run some tox screens, but at the moment he's not co-operating. They said that they are also running tests to check on his kidneys to make sure they have not been damaged. They changed the antibiotics he was on in case it was that medication he had a reaction to.. so the bacterial infection will be taken care of. He's ate a little this morning, which is a good sign, but he's still not in the clear.

I wanted to go to see him, but they said they don't encourage owners to visit their animals as it's stressful for the animals to be left behind when the owner leaves. I really wish I could go and give him a cuddle, but hopefully he's going to be ok. He'll need to be kept in tomorrow, Tuesday and possibly Wednesday... I'd be more than happy if that was the case and he can come home then. I've to phone tomorrow morning, and if thers's some news (more than likely bad) they will call my mobile in the meantime. I'm going to panic anytime it rings now... but fingers and everything crossed he's going to make it.

Well it's 4 in the morning, and I can't sleep. I phoned the clinic at 9pm to tell them I was certain that it was the de-worming treatment that had caused the posioning. I'd been looking online about this product, and it stated that it was to be used with caution on ill animals. Other websites I looked at warned about using a worming treatment on sick cats as it could be fatal. In my mind, there's no doubt that it's the worming treatment I put on his neck at 9pm Friday night that is causing his problems. I am just so mad at myself that I didn't look at these websites last night, I would never have put it on him. He was improving last night, at 8pm when I was putting Noah to bed, Neo followed me upstairs and waited outside his room. When I came out he was purring and we had a little cuddle, he looked like his old self.

The woman at the clinic didn't speak great English, but she understood me well enough. She said that they had tried treating him for this specific posion but that there was no way to get it out of his body, all they could do was to try to support his kidneys as he tries to flush the toxin out of his systerm. (This was incidentally going against what my vet had told me when I phoned her at 8pm to tell her I thought it was the wormer, she said she's considered it but didn't think it was possible as she's never seen this reaction with the product before. Has she never heard the saying "there's a first time for everything" ? But then she's the one who told me to use it, so she might just be covering her tracks.

Regardless of the outcome, I'm going to print out the pages about this product, and highlight for her where it says it is not suitible to use on a sick animal. At least this way all Neo's suffering will not be for nothing, if it prevents her perscribing it to another cat that's ill.

Noah can't sleep either, I best go up to him

Neo

As promised an update on how he's doing.. I'm sorry to say he's not doing well. He really didn't seem to respond the the painkiller the vet gave him this morning.. he was yowling and trying to hide under the furniture when we got home and still not touching any food/water. So I phoned her at 3pm and said "I know you said to wait till 6, but he's really not looking well and I don't see the point in waiting 3 hours to phone you". She said she'd do an x-ray, so I fed Noah and brought Neo down at 4pm.

She took him away to x-ray him, and I sat with Noah who was asleep in the buggy. A few minutes later she called me, and I knew by the tone in her voice something was wrong. She showed me the x-ray and explained that there was nothing to see on it, but that didn't mean he didn't have a blockage.. certain things won't show up. She told me that the real problem was he was going into shock, he was shivering and turning blue (his gums at least.. not him) and that he needed to go right this minute to a clinic 1/2 hour drive away or he would die. Needless to say, everything was a bit of a blur. She kindly phoned me a taxi and gave me his x-ray and urine samples to take with us.

It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. Neo was on the front seat, and I was in the back with Noah. I could hear him miowing for a while, and then he went quiet. I couldn't keep the thought that we were already too late from entering my head. Noah was sitting beside me in the car, being as good as gold.. and it was really nice to have his hand to hold. He seemed to sense I needed it as he held it all the way there.

We got to the clinic ontime, Neo was x-rayed again.. still nothing. They mentioned that it might be posioning, and the previous vet had said the same.. and that if it was posion, without knowing the type it would be almost impossible to treat. He was then admitted to have a warm drip during the night. The last time I saw him he was being carried away looking really small and ill. I placed a kiss on his head and said goodbye to him. They told me to phone tomorrow morning at 9:30.

When I got back home, and got Noah to bed the thought occured to me that there had been no mention on posion yesterday, all he had was a fever and a bacterial infection. I had administered a wormer to the back of his neck last night at 9pm, on the vets instructions. She said if he had worms that would also make him feel ill. I couldn't help connecting the fact that he was so ill this morning to the fact that he'd had the wormer. I phoned the vet and asked her to consider this as the source of the toxin. She said she'd been on the phone to the clinic and they had talked about it, but ruled it out as neither of them had ever had a case of this kind of reaction with the brand. However, it does say on the leaflet that the use of this wormer isn't widely tested on ill animals, and should be used in a need-risk assesment basis. I'd read this before giving it to him, and just assumed that the vet wouldn't have told me to worm him if it was going to do him harm.

Tomorrow I will phone up and see how he's doing. It's a really tough time, I personally feel that it was the wormer, and that by trying to make him better, I may have posioned him. But he's in the best possible place at the moment, and I'm sure they are doing all they can for him. Tomorrow morning can't come fast enough, so I can hear how he is :(

Update on Neo

Although Neo seemed to feel a lot better in himself yesterday when he got back from the vet, this morning he seemed ill again. He wouldn't eat the fresh chicken I cooked for his breakfast, and was sitting as close as he could to the radiator, or hiding behind the boiler... So I took him back to her this morning (looking no doubt like mad cat woman.. I had Noah in his usual seat at the back of the double buggy, and Neo in his cat box sitting in the front). It was a really good way to transport him though, as that cat box isn't so easy to carry.

She took his temperature, which was quiet low..and to anyone who knows HOW they take a cats termpearture, you can imagine it wasn't a very dignified affair. It was made worse by the fact that she also gave him an anal enema to try to help him to ummm 'go'. The cat litter box has been suspiciously empty for at least a day,and if he doesn't pee by 6pm this evening I've to call her again. She also gave me the number of another emergancy vet in case I can't reach her... so here's hoping he starts to pick up soon.

She can't say what's wrong with him other than it's a general bacterial infection. The poor cat is quiet ill though, that's for sure :(

A cat's tale

Amie the same age as Noah is now, looking a lot like he does I think


A blast from the past... Amie and Neo, before there was Amie and Noah!

Well today is a big day for Amie, her first holiday without her mummy (or Noah). We were meant to be at a wedding in London tomorrow… but sadly, it wasn’t to be. First of all Noah is ill with a virus, causing an ear infection and bronchitis. I had him at the dr. yesterday to check he would be ok to fly, and he was giving the all clear.. so it was all systems go.


Seeing how much Neo loves flowers, maybe I should buy him a "Get Well Soon" bunch all for himself

However, my other son, Neo hasn’t been himself all week. It started on Monday when I had to wake him up to get some chicken (alarm bells should have been ringing already then), but he’s continued to just lie around the house, eating very little, not purring, not grooming himself.. and even losing weight (which in itself is not really a bad thing). Of course, thanks to a visit to the vet when he was 6 months old, Neo is missing a few accessories, but he’s still a male.. so I didn’t pay too much attention to him at first, I just put it down to a feline version of “man flu” and expected him to be ok in a few days. He’s had this before where he’s been off for 3 days and then just recovered himself. However, last night when we got back from dinner, I got a bit of a shock. He looked like he was 20 years old, not 4.. and something just told me he really was sick (not least a dream I had that night about a friend of mine who’s a veterinary nurse who urged me to take Neo to the vet as it was an emergency… you don’t need to be Freud to figure out what that dream was trying to tell me.


We finally took him to the vet this morning, 2 hours before we were due to leave for the airport. She took blood samples because she was worried about his kidneys, and I had a nervous 20 minutes waiting for the results. Luckily his kidneys are fine, and it appears from his fever and raised white blood cell count that his body is fighting an infection (and like every fight Neo has ever been in, it was losing). So, a shot of painkillers and antibiotics late, not to mention a lot of freshly cooked chicken, he’s back to purring and washing himself… which is a good sign. I’ll have to force some antibiotics and painkillers down his gullet for the weekend, and take him back on Monday.. when hopefully he’ll be given the all clear.


Considering this is what I would have looked like at the wedding, perhaps it's just as well I didn't go........I'm SURE that dress has shrunk since I hung it up the after the last time I wore it!

Amie and daddy made there way to London, and from what she’s told me over the phone this evening they are having a great time. They have the camera with them, so I hope they get some nice pictures that I can put up on the blog. It’s strangely calm without Amie around, but also uneasily quiet. I guess I just get used to the chaos.. speaking of which, it’s time I tidied the sitting room… and made the most of a chance to sit down and read myself a bedtime story for once.

Will keep you posted on how little Neo is doing… and Noah too for that matter!

She did it :)

No up to date pictures, but I like this one of Amie painting :)

Well today was a big day for Amie .. her first day out of nappies, out and about, with no accidents (bit of a big day for mum and dad too :)

We started on Monday morning with a free Dora the Explorer sticker chart I printed off the internet, and some stickers, and a box of smarties. I was amazed how quickly she got the hang of it, and the great pride she took in taking her potty to the toilet and emptying it down. By Friday she was going to her usual playgroup without her nappies on, while I took German lessons. I'm very proud of her, and relieved to finally have this milestone out of the way.

It all went rather smoothly, though she did bash me about the face with her wet nappy when I tried to convince her to put some knickers on instead of another nappy.... but that war wound aside, it was plain sailing :)

In other news Noah said another word today ... "trousers"... he already says "Hiya" when he's holding a phone to his ear, and makes some animal sounds.. but so far he's not much of a talker (that must just run in the female line of the family) :)

Happy Birthday dear Noah

Today is Noah's birthday. It is hard to believe that the little guy has only been around for a year, but at the same time this past year has flown by. To those of you that remembered his big day, thank you very much for all your cards, pressies and good wishes (and Emma, we were playing your song over the loud speaker on my mobile.. just to add some party atmosphere when we were cutting the cake :).. and to those of you who forgot (you shall remain nameless.. but shame on you) from this day on, on the 5th February may your shower always run out of hot water just when you've put the shampoo in your hair and worked it up into a really thick lather


Now that he's 1 he's taken up the classics, studying music and literature.. at the same time, in his bare feet.

Noah didn't have such a nice start to his birthday as he was due his third, and final Hep B vaccination. This bitter pill was made a little sweeter by the fact that his big sister had to get a jab too. Amie was very brave, even though it hurt her she didn't cry.. Noah is slightly less brave, in general and he did cry... but then, he was only a baby yesterday. It will take him a few weeks to get used to acting like a toddler (and I don't think he'll ever be as tough as his big sister). Amie sang to him to take his mind off getting the injection, so I think for the rest of his life he's going to have an aversion to hearing "Happy Birthday to You"

Other than all that excitment, we're going well with Amie's potty training. Or that is to say, Amie is doing well potty training herself. I just took her nappy off her yesterday morning on a whim, and after a few floods she's getting the hang of it and going to to loo on the potty herself without being prompted. She then empties it in the toilet and washes her hands.. so fingers crossed, after a few false starts, this is it and she's on her way to being nappy free. I hope by her 3rd Birthday (which is 2 months yet... so plenty of time :)


With all this food flying around, Neo thinks it's his birthday EVERY day