The kennel called last night and told us Mr. Tawney was acting strange and wasn't eating. At our request, the owner took him to the emergency vet and we cut short our vacation to find out what was wrong, but it didn't sound good.
The vet isn't sure what happened, but he was suffering from blood sodium levels so high they topped the charts, it made him lethargic, confused, severely dehydrated, and would have ultimately lead to fatal swelling of the brain. It could have been a tumor, or kidney disease, or a stroke, but it would have cost thousands of dollars to pin down the cause, with no change in a very poor prognosis. Rather than see him suffer, we made the difficult decision to say farewell to our Big Boy. He was about 12 years old.
For nearly 30 years, I've always shared my home with at least one cat, and at one point as many as four. Now there are none.