Fila, Mixed Domestic Long Hair Orange (1985 - Aug 8, 2006)
This is Fila, the whiny, neurotic kitty. If you happen to be talking
to me on the phone this is the one making all of the noise. He's also
the largest one, at around 14lbs and is close to 16 years old in these
pictures.
Fila is neurotic because he was my ex-girlfriends cat (and well
pampered) until I bought her a dog, at which point she instantly
ignored him in favor of the dog. Luckily, since we were living together
at the time, I managed to make enough time for him so that he's not
totally insane, just neurotic-ally needy.
Now that the kittys are geting older, they're starting to have problems, Fila turned out to be a schitzophenic diabetic, I had to give her shots twice a day with the needle and they shaved her neck so that I could make sure to give the shots correctly.
Update 2006 - Fila had his share of medical problems and successes, his diabetes went into remission when we changed his diet to canned food. A few years later he started losing weight due to a kidney problem .. mainly old age, but we managed to stem that with regular IV's of fluids. Then he started to lose his hearing, after that his very loud voice started to go ... deaf and mute the birds never bothered him again.
A bit later he started losing weight again and then had on and off kidney issues, and he was eating like a pig .. turns out he had a small thyroid tumor .. not enough to treat and in fact it was making his kidney values look better and better.
He managed to make the move back to Seattle with the help of some kitty valium. The thyroid issue still seemed to cause gluttony but at the same time the weight was slowly coming off, treatment was unsuccessful and he stopped eating all togeather, there wasn't too much visible pain at the end. In fact, the day before he passed he was much more spry and alert and even ate some solid food (never could keep him away from the roasted chicken) but it was just his last hurrah.
Fila passed away at 2:40am on Aug 8, 2006 .. he was around 21 years old and was quite the kitty.