Rishi 1993-2004

Rishi 1993-2004
	Rishi was a partial siamese black male who loved people as much as people loved him. It's unusual for a cat to be so warm and affectionate as Rishi, but it was what made him special. No one looks forward to losing their pet.

There is always some pain involved no matter your relationship with animals but it seems to be more excruciating for a couple who have no children, no family living with them, who as a result come to treat their animals like children. In our case, species was irrelevant with Rishi. He was a member of our family and someone we loved and we lost him to an illness.

If you can sense the pain in this writing that is my goal. But realize that what I feel and what I can convey is only a portion of what my wife feels, the person who discovered Rishi, she was his original parent, the one person Rishi had known all of his life and she a third of hers. They spent ten years together in a symbiotic relationship that I can only hope to understand. I only came to know the joy of Rishi in the last seven years when I met her. My loss is only partial of my wife's grief yet what I still feel is still enormous.

I started writing this minutes after receiving a vetinarian diagnosis dictated to me by my wife over the phone in her wavering and trembling voice as she tells me why a love of her life does not have much time left in this world. I will only publish this when Rishi passes from us.

Rishi had a growth in his mouth resembling a tumor. The biopsy revealed it was Squamous Carcenoma (Cancer) and his prognosis was he could live a year and a half with surgery which would involve removing a portion of his jaw or less than three months without the procedure. That prognosis gave us two options that we were not happy about choosing for Rishi. But a decision had to be made for his sake and comfort of living and we decided not to take him anywhere but home. We tried mild treatments, a medication called Piroxicam that is designed to stunt the growth of the tumor, but not erase it. The hope was to try and slow it down prolonging his life. It was easy for us to administer and more importantly, Rishi did not have to leave his home and family.

Despite the treatments, his condition worsened rapidly through the month of April and just 29 short days after his diagnosis, Rishi left us. He went peacefully and purring to his last breath and we will miss our little black buddy.

Rest in peace Rishi. We love you.

This entry was posted at the minute of Rishi's passing so that we shall always remember.