At 10:30 this morning, Gadget had her Rainbow Pass  validated. After bloodwork and three sets of x-rays taken on different days, it was determined that she had a stricture of her ileum (last part o the small intestine) which, according to a friend of mine who is a Feline Specialist, in cats, this is a common place to find intestinal cancer there’s. Sure enough, under that stricture was lymphoma.

I pulled her file a few days ago to refresh my very fading memory. I’ve had three Gadgets here, and this Gadget was one that arrived with Shell. There were three kittens,  that were taken from this hoarder. One died an hour after she arrived here, it was found that she was riddled with cancer. Shell, although she fought valiantly, she also succumbed to cancer. The fact that Gadget was able to survive as long as she did is a miracle. I really want to bury her on my property, but I can’t. It’s not that I don’t have the room, but it’s been raining so hard I won’t be able to dig a decent hole. It would just fill with water. I can’t afford to get her ashes back so she will be sprinkled in a farmers field somewhere. I guess that’s fitting end for a cat who lived outside for her entire life.

I know that having outside cats is not ideal, but sometimes it’s the only way these cats can or will live. I saw her every day. I never saw her go off property. She had three areas here that she loved to stay in. She never went anywhere, and although I could never get near her, I saw her every day and I knew her normal. When I saw her walking across my property or trying to, that’s when I knew her normal days were gone

Now she is with God sitting on Michael’s lap. I’m sure they were happy to see each other. One of the places that she used to hang out in was his shop. I am devastated. At least I know she’s no longer in pain.

I told my vet that I felt like I let her down. He told me: on the contrary, you saved her from a great deal of pain. You caught this early and you knew something was wrong and you fought for her. You were her voice. Had you not brought her in, she would have been losing weight soon, not eating and if she vanished again and didn’t reappear, she would have lingered on until the stricture just choked her.

Here we are spending the last moments together before the vet arrives with the final solution:

God granted me a 15 minute lull in the storm. Gadget has been laid to rest by the barn she loved to hang out in.