This morning they did preop bloodwork on Luci to check kidney and liver functions, protein levels etc and found that she was in full fledged kidney failure. :(

The vet (who is a cat lover and an optimist - we've always been happy with her and my friend was her vet assistant til her baby was born) said there really wasn't any hope.

I had to track Brian down in the DFW airport and talk to him. I scared him of course by paging him in the airport (he managed to call me 30 minutes before his flight to Miami). I just couldn't make this decision on my own.

Her kidneys simply wouldn't function. I went and spent about an hour with her. She purred and let me love on her. She was so sick she was throwing up blood. I was with her when she died and a friend is coming by tomorrow am to dig a space in our flowerbeds to bury her.

I can't believe it. The mouth infection was bad but the Dr. said it was secondary to the kidny failure and said that if she did speculate on what happened she figured Luci always had kidney problems or had a bad virus at one time (we can't remember her being sick) and that most times kidney failure is one of those things that isn't detected until it's too late. And that the kidney problems probably worsened the infection in her mouth.

So I've lost my baby! My Luci Belle :( I miss her so much! The above pic is one of Luci as a kitten about 12 weeks. I have more but they aren't scanned.