Two years ago, it was a stormy night with sideways rain and heavy wind. One of our friends called us to let us know they found a tiny kitten, out in the cold, just crying in the midst of the storm. They took this little black and white kitty in although they were unable to keep him. We decided that we would house him for a few days until we could find another home for him. When we picked him up, he had some sort of upper respiratory issue and we knew he would likely be euthanized if taken to a shelter. One thing led to another and we fell in love with little Burke kitty (named Burke because he was found on Burke Street). Burke became a part of our family and our old lab/shepherd mix fell in love with him. Eventually, we started to notice that Burke consistently took shallow and quick breaths, even when not excited or playing. During his first vet appt, they told us that they had a little bit of trouble getting him awake after his anesthesia from his neuter. After getting him further checked out, we learned that Burke was suffering from a diaphragmatic hernia. His internal organs were putting pressure on his heart. Burke didn't seem to be slowed down much by his condition so we took some time thinking about how we would handle this. We had a few options... We could 1) Euthanize him. 2) Let him live out his life for as long as he could, as is or 3) Opt for a hernia repair surgery that could be both expensive and risky with a fairly low success rate. Eventually, Burke's condition started to decline. We slowly noticed that our poor kitty would no longer lay down. We believe because the pressure on his heart was too much. We would find him napping on the stairs so that his upper body was higher than his lower body. After watching Burke have an "episode" of nearly fainting, we decided to make the appointment to have Burke put down. Unfortunately, on that night, approximately one hour before the appointment, Burke passed away in my husbands arms. The pressure on his heart was just too much and our little kitty couldn't handle it. We miss him very much and just hope that he didn't suffer much. We'll remember him always as our little saved storm kitty who loved laser lights, feather toys and to pounce on our lab mix in the morning :) RIP Burkey boy.

Johnathan and Brooklyn L.