Losing a Friend...

As if life hasn't been -- interesting -- enough the last few months (gee thanks, Leo), a couple weeks ago we saw that Archie, one of the cats, was starting to lose weight and seemed to be sleeping more. We kept an eye on him, and a bit over a week ago got him into the vet to get checked out. The last week has been more or less an endless stream of talks with the vets, visits to the vets, tests, waiting for test results, and generally stressing out and all of the things involved with waiting and not knowing.

Friday, we finally got the results back from a test that gave us a definitive answer, although not the one we wanted; Archie had advanced intestinal cancer that had clearly started spreading. We made the tough call and said goodbye.Archie's been our companion for over 14 years; if we forged his kennel papers he'd pass for a Maine Coon, but he was a feral rescue and we know mom looked nothing like he did. He had that feral "run first" timidness, and wasn't particularly friendly to strangers, but once he got to know someone, he was a helpless lap cat.We're now a one cat family, and honestly, that cat prefers that, so we won't be bringing in a kitten now.

We are going to miss him greatly, but from what we can tell he was never in pain and never suffered.So it hasn't been a fun couple of weeks here in Chateau Plaidworks. if I've missed an email or been slow to reply, I apologize. Hopefully, with the holiday arriving, we'll get our batteries recharged a bit and get back on it.