If you told me I was going to adopt a cat with special needs, I’d tell you that you’re crazy. Cats are supposed to be easy pets. Just leave food and water and litter and you can come and go.

Unlike a dog, cats are pretty independent, right? Well that’s not how it went for me. My first cat was from a litter that my mother found outside her house. She was able to catch them all and the momma cat. She had her spayed and the kittens were young enough to not be afraid of humans. My husband and I took his daughter over to pick one out.

We already had a dog and thought a kitten would be an easy addition to our little family. As a kid, I was always finding animals whether it was a turtle on the road or a kitten in the field behind our house. My mother joked that my first words were “can I keep it?” It was always so rewarding to know I saved a life, so honestly, rescuing/adopting is the only way I know.

Back to my mother’s house of kittens – When we got there three were playing rambunctiously together, a fourth curled up on my mother’s lap and a fifth one sitting on a bar stool in the corner just taking it all in. We decided on that one. She was all black and looked like she had quite the attitude. We got her home and introduced her to her surroundings. She immediately became comfortable with us, her new home and our dog. She was a perfect fit. Of course we had trouble agreeing on a name for her so she is affectionately known as “Kitty.”

Just a few months in she developed a weird kind of cough that got really bad in just a matter of days. It would make her have no energy and her breathing became very labored. We rushed her to an all-night animal clinic thinking she’s got a hairball lodged or something and we’d be on our way back order finasteride us home with her in no time. What we weren’t prepared to hear was that she had a genetic heart defect. I forget the technical term the vet used but basically one wall of her heart was underdeveloped and much weaker than the other. This would result in fluid backing up and cause her to constantly cough. He quickly suggested we euthanize her rather than pursue costly testing and treatments. I told him to give her something to help her get through the night and I took her to a vet with a cardiologist on staff the next day.

Several ultrasounds annually, multiple heart medications daily and 10 years later, we still have Kitty. You would never know she had a heart condition. That late night vet just assumed that we wouldn’t want the expense or the inconvenience of having a cat with a heart condition. To him it would have been the simple answer to just euthanize her and go adopt a new cat. Would you do that with a child? I don’t have children, so maybe I take it to the extreme when it comes to my pets. They are my children and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them.

The moral of the story to potential adopters is don’t give up on, or assume you can’t handle a special needs pet. It breaks my heart to think about what could have happened to her if I hadn’t been the one to adopt her. Kitty’s heart has become much healthier and stronger over the years. She is expected to live a full, normal life. At first she was on 3 medications multiple times a day, whereas now she only requires 2 little pills every other day. We’ve actually created a little game of it. She makes me catch her then I have to have a very steady hand as I insert the pills in between her tongue flicks. It’s quite comical actually and I wouldn’t change it for anything.