If you know me then you probably have already heard what happened last week. It’s been a hard week for us and I’m going to try real hard to remember the details from the past few months and pen them down here. This is possibly the hardest thing I have had to write.

Our oldest cat, Murphy, was diagnosed with feline arthritis back in July. He’d probably had it for quite a while but the symptoms were getting more obvious and detrimental that we had to take him to the vet. He was limping around on one of his legs but we had thought he just landed funny from jumping from a high area – just a sprain – but after he started crying and falling down a lot when he walked we took him to the clinic. The veternarian said he had developed arthritis from age and possibly his weight. He also had a bad ear infection which was affecting his balance. The vet put him on some Metacam (pain medication) and an antibiotic. We were also told it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get his weight down which we attempted to do by limiting his food portions and not allowing him to graze throughout the day.

The medication sure did its job well. Murph wasn’t complaining when he walked. His limp was still noticeable but he seemed pretty happy that he wasn’t in pain anymore. I kept him on his medication schedule, made sure he was eating right, and got plenty of love & attention. As the months went on, he started limping on both hind legs as well as waddling and dragging them a few times. The vet said there really wasn’t more that we could do as arthritis is a degenerative disease and all we could do is slow the progression and make Murphy feel good about himself.

Last week, however, his condition got worse and beyond his control.

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