Applesauce
May 16,2012-October 7th, 2022
Nicknames: Little Noodle, Scary Claws, Sweetheart, Waffles/Syrup (She would smell like waffles/syrup which could've been a sugar processing health issue), butt (due to her attitude and sass)
Breed: Seal Point Siamese
Day we got her: 3/8/2021
Loves: Snuggles, Pets, Hot dog, Chicken Broth, String, Long Grass
Hates: High-pitch sounds (i.e. power tools, the clinking of silverware), cold, being chased by Sherlock, vacuum cleaner
How she won us over:
her purrs, her unique sounds (meows, chirps etc), her personality, her sweetness, her big beautiful eyes, her weird sleeping positions, that she loves to cuddle, she would follow you just to be a part of the family.
Such a big impact in such a short time.
We honestly did not know how big of an impact this little one would have on us considering our first meeting was not very promising. John found a listing for her online. back in early 2021. The listing spoke of a siamese cat that would cry if she didn't have cuddles at night. That won John over so he reached out to find out more about her. Once he told me, he was still waiting for a response back and told me about the listing. I wanted to refuse but she sounded adorable so once we found she was available we went to go pick her up from Pueblo.
I think it was that afternoon or evening we went to pick her up. She was a skinny cat and hard to see as the light slowly disappeared turning to night. It wasn't until we made it home that we got to look at her better. She barely had any fur: it was extremely thin and short, showing bare skin. Though her skin was so thin and pale it was almost as if you could see her skull. The shape was sharp, just enough skin to soften the edges....but barely. She smelled like death. The musty smell that comes from old age and moments from the end. Her eyes were extremely squinted, oozing with eye goop. She looked so thin. Though she had a naturally thin figure, you could see such sharp hip bones that looked more like a skeleton without skin than with. For the first day and a half, we watched her all scrunched up, rushing to the water to drink tons of water, to rush to the bathroom. Then again and again, sometimes for 10s of minutes at a time. We were so confused since neither of us have been around a cat that drank as much as she did. I think we were warned that she had anxiety and didn't like to be alone...so anxiety? We know we certainly need the bathroom more when our anxiety kicks up. Perhaps? She would rest here and there but pop up every so often to repeat the cycle.
After she didn't eat for a day we became alarmed. Even Sherlock ate within a few hours of being brought home. And Sherlock hid for most of the day while Applesauce stayed by us meaning she was comfortable enough around us to be able to eat. We called out of work and took her to the ER to have her looked at. We didn't have a lot, but we had just started a job so as long as we could have a payment plan, we may be able to cover it. We had her for a day and a half and due to her health issues being unattended by her previous owners, we paid $400 right off the bat. (Thank goodness the people didn't demand payment for her as was mentioned in the listing). She was so backed up that they had to flush her system twice. But she was going to recover. This is also where we gave her the name Applesauce. Since we brought her to the ER, we were kind of needing a name for her to create a patient profile there. So John came up with a name (a word) that we rarely ever use or would hear. Ironically cue the next year of constantly hearing the word "applesauce' be used since we named her.
There were a lot of health issues with this one. We were told by the owner that she was 3 years old. She also said that she would send us her medical history. It took us a month to finally get the documents to find out that she was NINE years old. We also found out that she had gone through quite a bit of medical issues and unbearable home conditions.
We read through her medical documents that stated she had quite a bit of medical work and a bit of the household conditions that she was originally from. She was brought into the humane society due to "inappropriate house soiling". Based on having her, it was probably because she didn't have access to a clean litterbox or may have been denied access by other animals living there. We only had that issue when she was going through one of her cycles (more on that later). She had many dental issues resulting in losing almost half of her teeth. She had dental disease and tartar build-up adding to her list of issues. She lived in a stressful environment. The litterbox was cleaned maybe every 4-5 days and dumped out every 15-30 days. There were other cats (notes were even confused if there was one other cat or two other cats). But not enough clean litterbox locations to use. She also had some sneezing issues that faded with us after a few months. She would overly stress and vomit frequently, even the notes of when she was being taken care of at the vets. The notes in her medical record still make me cry as she was lethargic, anorexic, not eating, depressed, drooling, in pain and so much more. She had suffered quite a bit while going through multiple medical conditions. It really sounded like she was inching toward death, but we are grateful for the vets who worked hard to keep her alive!
I don't think I will be able to look through her records again. To think of how much she had to go through, I really wish we could have saved her sooner. We really hope that we were able to give her a better life and allow her to be a cat in a home that loved her.
Below are our earliest images of her. The photo shows a bit more fur than what it looked like in person. It looked so much thinner that you could easily see through to her skull. Her fuller and brighter pictures are further down the page! <3
Her History & When We Met
She got to be a real cat.
This girl, we weren't sure she was going to live past her first week with us. But as time went by and we adjusted our life for her, she began to thrive. Yes, she still had some health issues such as high anxiety, urinary crystals, food absorption issues, mental decline (she would circle CONSTANTLY), leak, vomit etc...we were able to make steps towards improving these. Some took a few weeks to solve, others took us almost a year to figure out.
We could see improvements in Applesauce which were encouraging. Her face filled out. Looking more like a furry diamond-shaped face instead of just a thinning skull. Her eyes widened, showing us big blue eyes that were full of wonder as she looked over the house from her cat tower. Her body healed to where she could stretch herself fully, instead of constantly holding herself in a crunched position. Her fur lengthened, thickened, and turned glossy. We can tell when a cat is cared for by the quality of its fur. Her's was beautiful until the end. Her skin and fur turned healthy which was able to hide her skeleton body. When we got her, her fur was so thin you could almost see through her skin which accentuated her skeleton underneath. No fur that she currently had was enough to hide the shape of a skeleton beneath. We are proud we were able to improve her health, which didn't exactly follow what the medical paperwork said that was given to us.
Since we kept a close eye on her every day, we made our own adjustments and did our own research to help Applesauce. We couldn't afford to keep taking her to the vet, especially when we found out that there isn't much they can find out without hundreds of dollars worth of tests...and even then they weren't even sure they would find anything or if they did (based on her previous records) that there would be anything they could even do. If they could, we are looking at THOUSANDS of dollars for just ONE of the surgeries she would need. If those were successful, her life would be in torment. Forced to take meds all the time and then forced to take MORE meds to keep those meds down. John went through what he found and it wasn't promising. It was over $20k with a small chance of success and then an expensive and exhausting life for all of us to keep her going. There was no way in his description that she would find any enjoyment in life and we weren't going to prolong her suffering. What kind of life would that be?
We had to let her go. We did know, after all, we weren't going to be able to keep her for long. We were already extremely proud we kept her alive and thriving for as long as we did. At least we were able to give her a wonderful last golden year. We did as much as we could to spoil her, even putting Sherlock aside a little bit to give extra attention to Applesauce. Sherlock was healthy and would be around, and we would go back to focusing on her once she was the only cat again. She would only have to wait a couple of months to a year and I just needed to make sure her health was up to par during that time.
Back to Applesauce. Her energy soared when we had her. At first, we had our bed on the floor and she would just run across us as we slept. I'd wake up to see her perched on my hip, twisting my back almost every morning for a few months. Unfortunately, I had a lot of back pain so this actually made things worse. She just wanted to be close (possibly also to stay in the safe zone when it came to Sherlock). She may not have dashed around the house much (since that normally tempted Sherlock to chase), but she did enjoy trotting from room to room and occasionally playing with string or feathers.
Let me tell you about how we got her to play! So when we first got her, she was very hesitant and restrained when it came to playing. She would just sit and watch Sherlock enjoy the new toys or scratch things. Even if we got them each one. We tried enticing her with treats or catnip (she liked catnip and would just lick it up...). But still didn't quite look interested. As the weeks went on and we played with Sherlock, we saw Applesauce's eyes start catching the movement. If we tried to bring her in, she would turn away and pretend she wasn't interested. Soon, she began to at least go over to where she heard playing going on (Sherlock has a very distinct snort she does when trying to catch string or a stick we are using with her). Again, she wasn't letting herself really play. Most of the time she would 'kinda' play on her own with some things (mostly the scratching stuff) when no one was around or paying attention.
After a few months of getting her. (I think about 3 since we were home more during that time), we managed to get her to play. She eyed the red string (that happened to come off the sticky side of light strips) and was focused. We were able to get her to chase it....scaring us in the process. Applesauce likes to spread out her claws wider than her body to try and catch the string. Meaning our poor bare feet were always in range of her claws digging into us.
Oh, did I mention that due to her age and bad health, her claws were not able to retract? So if she stepped on us we FELT it. If she happened to slip, we would get a needle impaling into our soft flesh. Early on, I wasn't great at restraining her to clip her nails and didn't have the energy to do it. I honestly didn't really try until about 10 months after we had her. By that time, we improved her health so that her front claws were able to retract. Her back claws seemed the same and probably past the point of recovery. The best option was to just trim her nails here and there. But I still barely did it since it would stress her out too much anyway and we were fine with suffering the cuts and stabs.
It was adorable (and a little sad) that because her claws not being able to retract, she would get hooked in fabric (or the floor) all the time. She'd have to pause frequently and try and shake her paw free. If she couldn't, she would just slump and wait until she had the energy to try again. We even had to put away a specific blanket I had because her claws would catch too easily in the large weaves and start ripping out threads. Now it's been so long...I don't actually remember where we put that blanket.
As time went by, she became extremely clingy up until a year of being with us. She would follow us to every room and barely eat unless we were nearby to watch her (I think she got worried Sherlock would jump her). Applesauce was a CUDDLEBUG. Wherever we sat, she would find a way to sit on our lap or next to us. She really wanted to be in the crook of our arm or laying on top of us. This got really difficult since it prevented us from doing almost anything. So for at least an hour a day, we couldn't move to let her rest. If we needed to, the other person who didn't have the cat would be required to get everything until Applesauce decided she was done and got down. We just wanted her to be happy.
The way she took naps was hilarious. I don't think I've ever met a cat who also liked taking naps where the rest of her body was above her head. She would have her butt up, hanging over your arm, while her head was slid down onto the bed. An odd angle that she would peacefully sleep in. We took TONS of pictures of her odd sleeping habits. Definitely look below through the images to see her silliness! I wanted to take more pictures of her awake, but if she saw me and the camera...she would just stop and be boring. I once sat for almost 10minutes with the camera, after seeing her do something adorable, watching her just stare at the wall. ._. I deleted the footage because the only thing that moved was my camera recording. She does well to rest in a position for awhile. But she was always wary if I pulled out a camera. And she normally only did things that were adorable AS she was interacting with us. So they were really unexpected. I did try to capture as much of her as I could to show how fascinatingly unique she was. Just giving a cat a safe atmosphere, a cat-friendly home, clean, and with people (or another cat) that will bring them companionship and a playmate...they form some interesting habits and means of communication.
Her interests started to spread. Such as when we take a walk in the park across the street, we tend to bring back a long grass or two. Sherlock loved chasing and playing with the piece we picked and we hoped Applesauce would as well. She did. She ended up LOVING it and would not hold back. We had o make sure we picked a long-stemmed one so there was enough distance between our hands and the swipe of her long claws. We do have a video of her below of her adorableness.
If it was a piece of string (she specifically loved the red one we got from peeling a wall light). We also think it might be because she didn't normally see well and she could catch the color of that string. Applesauce was FAST and would be able to snatch it out of the sky with a chomp of her jaw. Then she would proudly trot off to show John or to hide somewhere to chew on it. (We did well to make sure there weren't any pieces that could break off and she would eat).
The more we played with her, the more animated and kitten-like she became. Her eyes widened and brightened as she looked around. for things to do. She wanted to interact and do more things with us as time went on.
Applesauce started with such a sad story and we hope that she ended on a happier note. The day before her passing, she still had a bit of cheerfulness, trotting outside to lay on the porch in the sunshine. She happily snuggled with us and followed us from room to room. Though we didn't have the optimal passing (peacefully in her sleep), we do hope we were able to lessen her pain and surround her with our love and attention.
How She Grew
SHE GREW BEAUTIFULLY
She required so much extra love and care.
We didn't realize that we would be adjusting a lot of well-established lifestyle for her. Such as, one of the first things we did was provide a water bowl for her in multiple rooms. I think we started out with 3 for her (while Sherlock only needed the one). Applesauce was the first cat I have ever met that drank water FREQUENTLY. So I would have to refresh all the water bowls daily. She also tended to leave bits of food behind when she drank so I would have to rinse out the 'soup' sometimes multiple times a day.
Her diet was a strange one. Because of her sensitive stomach and her reaction to stress, we took almost a year to find her a more reliable food pattern. The medical records stated that she should be on only wet food, half a can, twice a day for the rest of her life.
No.
They were wrong. First of all, wet food does not always contain all the nutrients they need. Even if you switch around wet foods, they won't get everything. On top of that, she couldn't stomach a lot of different foods such as the pink label of Friskies which I believe was salmon. She would immediately throw that up. There were some preparation types of food she would throw up such as shreds and shavings she didn't stomach as well but Pate was fine. But she needed a dry food for other nutrients which she began loving the type that Sherlock really liked. So eventually she would begin to race Sherlock to the dry food drops. We have a cat food dispenser that drops food every couple of hours.
We started to pick up that she would get anxious if she wasn't fed...which would result in bile throw-up. Sorry to be disgusting, but this happened for a few weeks. I never had a cat that required to be fed every 3-4 hours. Have you ever been so hungry you became nauseous? That's where she was. After looking back, we could see that there was something wrong with her in that her body wasn't absorbing nutrients well so she required to eat frequently. We also had to keep in mind the amount of food we fed her or she would over-gorge herself and then vomit again. Then she'd be hungry but I'd still have to wait to feed her again, as an inflamed throat and stomach was not good for new food.
So I would drop down to feeding her 1/6th of a can each meal, every 3-4 hours. But it could be more frequent if she seemed like she was yelling for food. My only stipulation was to wait at least an hour to make sure the first set of food went down her system enough. The only time I didn't have to feed her, was a 5hr break overnight. I was up by 2 or 3am to feed her again. Then again at 5 or 6. Again at 9 or 10. All the way until about 8 or 9pm for the last feeding. Overnight at 11pm and 4am I had two dry food drops. Mostly for Sherlock, but also for Applesauce who sometimes beat Sherlock to the food. After some time, both didn't feel stressed about rushing to get food and would actually just acknowledged that the food dropped (such as a head lift and look in the direction), but would go back to sleep letting the other take the food or both would just wait for later.
Now that issue stemmed from a previous issue. She used to get so stressed that her hormones would cause urinary crystals to form within her urinary tract. Once they were large enough, while passing through her system, would scrape her insides up. She would be in extreme pain, crunching up her body, downing water like no tomorrow, rushing to and from the bathroom, walking around in circles and not eating a thing. Applesauce would try to pass this but it would take hours. At first, we had it to where her cycle of this would last a few days. The vet told us that this would happen every month for a few days each month. She would leak and be stressed...which would stress us out as well. We couldn't stand the smell of anything that needed to be cleaned up, left by her. So we would constantly follow her around to make sure we could properly clean up after her. Since she was so stressed, she would end up tracking a lot of things behind around our home.
We worked hard to lower her stress and fix her diet. Sherlock was being a butt as well, chasing Applesauce around. At first, because Sherlock was territorial, but after a while, it was more due to wanting to play, even though Applesauce was an older cat and with her pain, not a playful type. This would sometimes set off her cycle. We constantly gave her cuddles, aimed at making her purr for an hour each day (purring vibrations are very beneficial to cats as it promotes internal healing and helps calm them). We wanted every means of improving her health and life. Luckily, the type of home she needs is the type of home we need and strive to keep as well: low-stress, calm, peaceful, predictable, and clean. Over the time that we had her, we could see a significant improvement.
Cleaning after her increased three-fold. We also made sure to keep the litterbox clean which meant I cleaned it at least twice a day. At a certain point, we also added a second litterbox in the house. Though they didn't like using that one much since we barely were over on that side of the home. They liked to be where we were so I still ended up cleaning the one litterbox. But this was just in case Applesauce was being blocked by Sherlock (who REALLY likes jumping and scaring anyone walking by), to be used if she needed to.
There were some adjustments we were both confined to but happy to make for her. Such as we wouldn't be able to travel or go on trips. She would be stressed if traveled, she was on the short ride to and from the vets. She would also stress if we were away from home long. So we wanted to minimize the time we were out of the house. We also weren't going to have anyone else look after her...after so many little details we pick up over the years watching over her, it would be too much to have them do. Also, would Applesauce even be ok with someone else that wasn't us? We just didn't want to think about it so we decided we would rather be home as much as we can and be with her to keep her company than go out on trips. Since we are homebodies and don't like going out much, it actually worked out. With her health as it was, we would only be giving up (what we hoped) a couple of years of possible traveling. We wanted to have her for at least 10 years...but reading her medical records we were going to be surprised if she lived a month after we got her. We would still give up going on trips forever if it meant we could keep her alive with us. At most, a trip to a national park for a few hours and then home that same day would be more than enough of a trip for us every 6 months. Ever since the ER, we wanted to make sure we valued and appreciated every day we had her. Afterall, we didn't know when her health would turn and we would lose her. During the last month of her life, we would always be checking on where she was and check her breathing. Though it is painful to lose a pet, I think it would be even worse to come home and find out they passed away while you were gone. At least when she passed, she was surrounded and held by us, hopefully knowing that we deeply loved her.
