For the third time in as many months, our hearts and our tangle of fuzzies
has suffered another painful loss.  Cindy, aka Buttons, aka THE stapler,
our 3 1/2 yr old rescue female mitt with a black spot dead center in her
nose (hence the name Cindy...as in Crawford with the dark mole) passed
away in her sleep surrounded by her mates.  She was in the early to mid
stages of Lymphoma and was still relatively OK...playing, eating and
generally insisting on lavish amounts of attention (if you didn't respond
to the latter request, the moniker of "THE stapler" would shortly become
evident as she would run up to your feet, nip you on any exposed piece of
flesh, and then back up dancing wildly, chortling that you now KNEW she
was ready for loads of attention.  She trained us all in reverse Pavlovian
conditioning..  and she trained us well.  She was very gradually weakening
and we were all very surprised by her sudden passing.  Our tribe has
shrunk from 12 to just 7 now...most of the attrition via endocrine
cancers.  This in a space of just 1 year.  None of the kids except one
(and he has been operated on 3X for adrenal tumors) has made it past 5.
 
The experience of losing just one fuzzbutt is unbelievably traumatic...I
liken it to losing a human friend...and the reality of losing 4 in a year
has been almost unbearable.
 
Please, Sandee...come to the end of the bridge with our other lost
ones...Bubba, Beeper, Blizzard and Abba the dancing queen to rejoice
and welcome our little Cindy.  She needs lots of attention now that she
doesn't have us any more.  At least until we meet again on some fine
spring day.
 
We are all just a breath away.
 
Putorius, CP and of course Bopper (healthy), Brando (inoperable kidney
cyst), Bounder (beginning stages of adrenal or lymphoma, Bon Bon (healing
from adrenal cryo three weeks ago), Bodie (the grand old man)...enlarged
heart, 3 adrenal cryos, Clyde (adrenal cryo) and Casio (recovering from
intestinal blockage surg. this last week)
[Posted in FML issue 3816]