This is Elm. She came to me nearly 3 years ago with her sister from a friend who couldn’t keep them. We sadly found Oak (her sister) dead one morning after about 6 months.

Because Elm was on her own I tried to spend as much time with her as possible, seeing her 2 or 3 times a day and sitting with her for a while every evening, when she enjoyed having her whole face and head stroked. I didn’t have her spayed, even though the vet kept recommending it, because I was afraid she would die.

Recently she developed lumps on her chin and seemed quieter than usual. I took her to the vet who decided to operate and spay her at the same time. Sadly it turned out that she already had a large uterine tumour. The chin lumps were just cysts.

The vet removed her uterus but couldn’t quite get all of the tumour as it was near her bladder. I took her home that evening but really struggled to give her medication as she hates being picked up and having her mouth touched. She wasn’t getting enough and I returned to the vet every day with her. Two of the days she stayed in so she could have morning and evening meds. I think she had developed GI stasis

After bringing her home from day hospital on the Wednesday, she actually seemed worse, so I decided to try really hard to give her meds at home.

She wasn’t eating much but I kept tempting her with bramble shoots, carrot tops – anything I could think of really! I had critical care food to syringe into her mouth and started on that. She seemed like she was going downhill on the Thursday but I carried on doing the best I could. On the Friday evening I had her sat on my lap, gave her medicines, gave her some feed but it was coming back out of her mouth. I stopped and wiped it away and she jumped off my lap, ran a couple of feet and crouched with her head pointing up and breathing heavily. I didn’t know what was wrong and thought she was stressed. Within a minute she ran into her box and thumped, ran out again, collapsed on the floor and died.

I feel terrible, as though I killed her. I was trying so hard to help her get better so that she could at least have some time in the summer sunshine. I worry I may have choked her with her feed, and feel so bad that she left me after I possibly harmed her and she suffered great distress. Very upset about this and missing her terribly 😭😭😭