Today I woke up hearing Riley crying. It wasn't his usual cry, more of a 'I'm really in pain' kind of cry. He managed to jump off the the bed, then when he tried to start walking, he couldn't. He was dragging his back legs behind him. He started crawling down the hall, crying the whole way.My sis and I thought maybe he had something stuck or that he tweaked something in his back enough that it was pinched or something. I started to pet him and he just kept crying. I touched his leg and it felt light. I lifted his leg up to see if he kept it up and no, it fell back to the floor.
We called the vet and they said to bring him right in. So we picked him up and put him in the carrier. We called both of our jobs and told them the situation. We took Riley to the vet, still crying and now throwing up. He still couldn't move his lower half.
The vet asked if he may have been hit by a car, but no he's an inside cat. The vet listened to his heart, then followed the artery down to his leg. The vet looked up and I knew it wasn't good. He was very sweet about it.
Riley had a heart condition that we weren't aware of. It was a galloping murmur that caused him to have blood clots. We never saw any clots so we didn't know. Otherwise he's been a very happy and healthy cat, we've never even had to take him to the vet. the only time he's ever been to the vet was for his neuter. This time around he had a very large clot that had traveled to his legs and was blocking his femoral arteries, basically cutting off 90% of the circulation to his legs. The vet told us he didn't hear a pulse in one of his legs.
We had two options, we could go all out meaning doing invasive surgery and removing the clot and putting him on meds giving him a 10% chance of survival or we could put him to sleep. I had already told myself when I first got him that if anything major happened to him, I wasn't going to go to extensive lengths to try to save any pet, no matter how special they are. I told the doctor that I thought it would be best to put him to sleep. I started to cry. He gave him a shot for the pain and gave us some time to say goodbye. I petted Riley and told him I would miss him. I told myself it was the best thing for him. It all happened so fast, I'm glad he didn't suffer too long.
We left the vet's office about 8:45 and proceeded to go to work. I took lunch a little early since I still felt like I needed to ball my eyes out. I didn't think it would hurt this much, but it does. Just knowing I won't have him around anymore makes me very very sad.
He was full of mischief and humor. He was a love bucket. I never got a good picture of it, but he had a heart shaped patch of white on his chest which stood out against his black hair. To lose him this close to Valentine's Day with a heart condition just kind of seems fitting.
I'm going to miss him.
