As I announced on some social media on 6/18:

Droplets and tears mix
Now she rides the rainbow bridge
Freyja returns home

I have been thinking about this for most of the time since we made the decision that it was time to let go, and it hits very hard. After George, who had a kidney full of crystals and a kidney that basically didn’t exist, and just a bad genetic draw in life, passed, a trio of cats came into the location that Shannon worked at the time. She was interested in one of them and wanted me to come in and see him. These were three cats that were a bit sickly that were being treated for the West Des Moines Animal Control. So I sat in a radiology room, with the trio. The cat who was renamed to Loki, was curious, friendly and playful, and the cat who was renamed to Freyja, was delightful and came over to me to claim me.

Freyja claims this person for her kingdom.

And when I said she claimed me, I mean it, she didn’t didn’t really leave me, until we had to put her back. When we visited again, she came back over to me. The third of the trio, ignored us both, so we brought Freyja and Loki home. After a bit of integration, Gracie, was not pleased to have these young and rambunctious kids around.

Freyja was still very attached to me, when she was a kitten she would fall asleep on my chest, as she grew up it ended up being sleeping on me or between my legs at night. Many nights, she would wake me up at around 2 or 3am to have me scratch her head.

She was a fearless little one as indicated by her being angry at the vacuum, and her late evening adventure.

A few years into her life, she suffered a seizure, and we took her to the emergency vet, and her gait was odd and eventually, she was brought back to a semi normal life.

Still very attached to the both of us, sleeping with myself or Shannon close by.

Later, she was clearly loosing weight, so we took her in, and she was having thyroid issues, along with some bad liver numbers. So we ended up giving her medication at first once a day, then twice a day. This was followed by the game of, “Freyja hides in new and inventive places”. This included multiple locations of under the bed, in side the bed support (a tare in the bottom of the bed support), many places around the house, behind things, in things, one of the most tricky ones was the washing machine

We got into a pretty good groove and started being smarter about closing doors. But she was still our, mostly my, little girl. She let me hold her like a baby, often would settling in on my shoulder while I was on the computer, and over the last year, while I was working.

Freyja was a huge fan of vents during the winter time. Often spending a good chunk of the day absorbing most of the heat for a room.

And here’s where I’ve been reexamining what her health was like. There were many times where she would have an odd head shake and other behaviors which we just thought were distinct to her, but now I am thinking they are probably short seizures or auras. And maybe she’s just been living with this for a long time, and we just didn’t recognize it as what it was. That just hurts me. I didn’t recognize the need in my little girl and while they don’t communicate their issues, and I’m in no way trained to recognize these things, there is still that nugget of pain of failing her.

We thought she had another mid-ear infection, as she had a few and her balance was a bit off, like it can be, but we scheduled an appointment for the first available appointment at her normal vet practice (though the less then close location) for Friday June 18th. She was doing ok, and eating well Thursday morning, and Thursday night she was a bit. odd, so we held her and cuddled here, and just kept an eye on her. We were thinking once we got her treated with an antibiotic, she’d be fine. We both had Friday off, and that morning, she was even odder in her behavior, and we were planning to take her in at the 8:AM opening time of the vet clinic, to just get her under vet care. I went up to shower while Shannon was holding her, and after I got out of the shower, Shannon experienced Freyja going through a full seizure, including letting her bladder go. On the advice of the local vet, we took her to an emergency vet. She siezed again after we passed her off to the vets and staff there, they started giving her fluids, an anti-seizure medication, an x-ray. And we found out that this was causing pressure on her heart, there was a risk if they gave fluids to quickly, it might cause pressure on the brain, and after relaying the words of the Vet to Shannon, and Shannon knowing that the odds of any sort of life after this was very low, we made the call to let her go.

I drove home to get Shannon and came back to the vet and said our good byes, witnessed another aura (pre-seizure) behavior, which made me start re-thinking everything. We held her while she left consciousness and passed.

Mani has looked for her a bit, at least we assume so,. Loki seems to be doing ok.

We are very grateful for the outpouring of support from friends and family.