pyewacketsworld

Friskey: May 19, 1968 ~ July 5, 1975

A continuation of my story about Friskey

This is a continuation of my story about Friskey, the cat who changed my mind that all cats weren’t as aloof or unfriendly as my first cat Babette had been. Friskey was to become one of my “velcro” cats, always sticking nearby me, following me around like a dog, he definitely wasn’t the definition of a independent cat. During the years that I had taken Friskey home we were to have a few more cats come into our lives. But Friskey was to remain one of my first favorites. Then heartbreak came.
It was early July 1975 and I was away for a few days visiting with a friend of mine. When I came back home the first thing I noticed of course, was that there was no Friskey. My grandmother was to tell me what had happened. One day she noticed that Friskey could barely walk and his back legs were giving him trouble, so she took him to our nearby vet, the vet we had gone to since our very first cat Babette came into our lives and we had trusted him during all these years. I asked her did the vet give any indication of what was wrong and she said no.

Friskey was to remain at the vet’s for about a week. We constantly called for updates but weren’t told a thing. We even asked if we could visit him and the vet said no as it might upset him. Now remember, we had trusted this vet for some thirteen years so we weren’t suspicious of anything. Finally, we asked if we could take him home and the vet agreed. When we picked him up however, no real explanation of what was wrong with him was given to us, no medications were given to us, and we were surprised to see his one back leg was all bandaged up…still no explanation of what was wrong.

My grandmother, mother and I were just happy to have Friskey home again. But he didn’t improve and only became worse. We decided to take him to another veterinary place, a rather expensive one in Manhattan. The news wasn’t good. We were informed that Friskey had a severe case of gangrene in that leg of his. We wondered, how did he get that way? He certainly didn’t have gangrene of the leg when we had taken him to our “trusted” vet. The options weren’t great either. The first was that the leg could be amputated and then very extensive therapy given to Friskey to get him used to walking and coping with only three legs, but at an astronomical cost, way above our means. The second option was as you might guess, the unfortunate one we had to take…to put him down. Neither my grandmother nor mother could cope with the decision or wanted to make it, and turned to me to make the decision….as if I wanted to. No, I most certainly did not but we just didn’t have the money to go for the other option. Tears were flowing on all our faces as I grimly told the vet to put my beloved Friskey down. Arrangements had also been made, since we had burial plots at the Wantaguh, Long Island, Bide-A-Wee to have Friskey buried there. Friskey was to be my first heartbreak, but he certainly wasn’t to be the last. Even after all these years, some thirty-four years later, I still miss my “velcro” cat.

As a note: We were to later find out, that the vet we had trusted for some thirteen years had a bad reputation. He seemed only interested in treating cats that were purebreeds only and not mere “domestic short-haired cats”. Many other pet owners of both cats and dogs also had major complaints against this vet, yet nothing was formerly done, and he still remained in practice many years to come until he retired. Nowadays of course, a person probably would have and could have sued, but then something like this never occurred for pet owners to do. If it had, believe me, we would have sued the daylights out of this vet.

©2008~Melanie Neer aka pyewacket

Trackback URI | Comments RSS