This morning our Maine Coon, Quinn, let us know it was time for him to cross the rainbow bridge. He was around nine years old — not very old by our household’s standards; most of our pets live well into their teens. But Quinnie (as we called him) did not have it easy during his time on earth. He was sickly from day one; when we got him from the Nashville Humane Society he promptly infected everyone in the house with some kind of pneumonitic funk. And from there on he battled skin allergies and immune system disorders.
Friends of the blog may remember Quinnie from his allergy days, when I bought him onesies at Target in an effort to keep his raw belly from getting infected.
I spent a fortune on specialists and allergy therapies; he got pollen shots for years, he took steroids and other drugs until we finally found a protocol that worked. More recently it was lymphoma, which required chemo. The lymphoma went into remission and we had Quinnie for about 15 months after his diagnosis, which is far longer than the vet told us to expect. A couple weeks ago we found a mass in his liver, though. He declined quickly after that.
Through it all he was a real trooper, with a big heart and a great attitude. He was an awesome cat.
One of the most unique things about Quinnie was his love of blue foam balls. Not yellow foam balls, not pink foam balls, but BLUE. They had to be blue. He would pick the blue ones out from the rest until we finally figured out we could just buy him blue ones.
You always knew Quinnie was feeling good because he’d walk around the house with a blue ball in his mouth, caterwauling at the top of his lungs. Sometimes he’d make Quinnie art with them. He’d place them on our bed in very precise, organized patterns. Of course he was limited by the number of balls he had access to but once I gave him a whole bunch and he made a perfectly-centered diamond shape on our bed with one blue ball right in the middle. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of it. It was his masterpiece.
Below, some memories of Quinn. He’s got quite a crew waiting for him on the Rainbow Bridge: Frasier and Sylive and Feister and Puddin’ and Toots, plus the dogs Cleo and Zelda and Boomer. I hope they’re all having a big party up there for him.
What follows are some memories of Quinn: