FreymuthCaveney Blog: Remembering Gizmo (August 14th)

On August 13th, Gizmo started getting sick and acting lethargic. Forest was studying for a final exam and Sienna was asleep so I took him to the overnight emergency vet clinic. Labs showed that he was in acute kidney failure. In fact, his kidneys were in such bad shape that they actually had to dilute his blood down before their computers could read the levels of BUN and creatinine in his system.  They were literally “off the charts”, some of the worst the clinic had ever seen. We tried very aggressively to treat him and bring his kidney functioning back, but after about 12 hours, it became apparent that too much damage had been done and we had to euthanize him. We have no idea what could have caused this to happen. He was only 5 years old. Our best guesses are some sort of toxin (unlikely as our house is clean and babyproof) or a genetic disorder.

As you can imagine, this was a CRUSHINGLY SAD blow to us. Gizmo was a real member of our family. We referred to him as “your brother” to Sienna. He was always there sleeping wrapped like a purring hat around Forest’s head at night and meowing at the door while he took showers in the morning. After his death, Frodo (who we weren’t sure would even notice) became quite “needy” and wandered the house sort of lost and whining for weeks.

I bought Gizmo for Forest for his 24th birthday. I found him online at an animal shelter and, when he was about 8 weeks old, we went to pick him up about 2 hours away from where we lived. One of my favorite memories was the trip home that day. Forest had tiny little “Mo” sitting on his knee the whole way home. Forest was sneezing, red-faced puffy and had tears forming in his eyes because he was so allergic to him! He tolerated this for weeks though, until his body adjusted and eventually Gizmo could sleep literally on his head without any problem. Now that’s LOVE!

We’ll miss ya Mo!!