In 2006 two of our cats, Valyn and Pixel, died from liver failure six months apart from each other. We hoped upon hope that just those two had gotten into something or that it was just coincidence that they both died of the same thing; thankfully at the time none of the others were showing any symptoms.

Well, our fears started to come real last week when Riamhaire (aka Reevara) came down with the same thing - she lost about 1/3rd of her weight very quickly, and all of a sudden became reclusive, lethargic and jaundiced. When we discovered her Liam (our 16-mo) had found her lying on the ground between two chairs where she was too tired to move from his rather forceful pets (aka thumps). It was very immediately clear she was in a very bad way and we ended up taking her to the vet and had her put down, so she didn't suffer any more than she already was. We thanked her for the seven years she'd shared with us, told her that we loved her, and petted her while she took her last breaths and died.

Yesterday our fears grew as we realized we couldn't deny it any longer, that it wasn't just that he didn't like the new food - another of our cats was coming down with the same disease. Apollo, who has only been with us just over two years, has been the most wonderful of cats. He showed up at our house and pretty much requested entry; amusingly I tried to chase him away with a broom against my wife's wishes, but we took him in and he has been the absolutely adorable - friendly, gentle, very loving and very fond of people. Right now he's at the vet's where they're trying to see if they can boost his system some, but honestly his days are very few at this point.

Furthermore at least one more of the cats has also been showing the symptoms too - Kish, who at this point is one of the only two cats still with us from New Hampshire, is also one of our favorites. She's terribly shy so it has always been a treat when she'd come up to say hi. We're going to take her in probably tonight though maybe tomorrow morning, but in the past week she has shown much of the same weight loss and lethargy.

So then we have three more - Keemah, who hasn't shown any signs yet but who has had some other problems of his own, Meesha who is Kish's sister and has definitely lost a lot of weight in the past year, and Alara aka Little Fuzzy but she's such a puff-ball it's difficult to tell if she's lost weight or not. We're going to have to take them all in to see, but I honestly don't think we're going to have many of them left by the end of the year. And its ripping us up.

Fuck.