Saying Goodbye to Sandy

My Sweet Sandy

I had a very difficult week. My cat of 6 years and few days passed away. She was a wonderful cat. She had quite the personality. She was my lap cat. Every day, when I would sit on my couch, she would jump and lay down on my lap. She would then purr up a storm. If I stopped petting her, she would look up at me and gently tap me no my chin to continue. It was quite funny. I would say, "What do you want?" Immediately, she would tap me on my chin and meow a little meow. She had me trained.

Every time that I would go into the kitchen, she would jump up on the red circular table and meow at me. She wanted me to feed her. The funny thing was that most of the time her bowl as completely full. She wanted to wet foot or just a scratch under the chin.

Sandy was playful. She loved to play with my cat Sammy. Every morning, she would come into my room and meow for me to pet her. Sammy would accompany her. They would then wrestle for a bit.

Sandy was also very persistent. If Sammy was on the couch or laying peacefully on the bed, she would jump on the bed and lay next to him. Sammy would groom her for a few seconds. Then, BAM! The wrestling would ensue. After about 10 seconds, Sammy would leave and Sandy would take his spot.  She was the boss!

About two years ago, Sandy came down with an autoimmune disease. It is called feline acne. She wanted to scratch herself in the face, near her ears, under her chin, and near her eyes. She also exhibited some behaviors where she would bite and wound herself on her paws and on her stomach. Thee itching was intense. We went to the vet a zillion times. They gave her injections of steroids that would arrest the symptoms for a while. When she would scratch herself, her face became black from bleeding so much. She had beautiful white face before she became ill. Her chin, neck, ears, around her nose and close to her eyes, were constantly scratched and bleeding. The vet gave me some lotion to put on her chin. He also gave us some medication that had to be administered orally. We couldn't put it in her food. That would not be a problem for a cat like Sammy. Sammy is a totally easy going cat. Sandy would run the moment she sensed we (my daughter and I) wanted to give her some medicine. My nineteen year old daughter and I could not make her sit still enough to give her the medicine. It was impossible. And that is what happened. Her condition grew worse. We kept taking her back to the vet to get injections. After a while, the vet decided that the steroid was not an option because of the side effects.  We were at a loss. We couldn't help her, yet she continued to get worse. She would scratch so much that her face was blackened with dried up blood. She would sit on my lap, and then all of the sudden she would dark off leaving me with some deep scratches on my legs. Her behavior became erratic. Sandy would bully the other cats and hide for days.  She would run from me for no reason. She scratched even more.

Sandy with Sammy (Notice her battered face from the feline acne.)

She passed on Wednesday. It was hard to see this. I wish there was more that we could have done. I took her to the vet constantly. We tried administering the medicine to no avail.The problem was her illness and not allowing us to help administer the medicine and clean up her cuts. It was totally frustrating because we were completely powerless. We just couldn't help her suffering. If only she was more like Sammy.
When I sit down on the couch, I look around for her. It is something that I am going to have to get used to...her not being around. She was a good cat with a terrible illness. I love you, Sandy! I'm gonna miss you!
I added a video about my crazy Sandy before she became sick. She always had a way to make me laugh.

My daughter wrote a blog post about losing Sandy and included some wonderful photos. Read if you like. The link in provided below.

Sandy in her younger years

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/losingapet