Rich Aimé by Annie Noa Kenet

May 12, 2000-March 30, 2011

Rich was a doer. He was involved in everything. He hated closed doors. The other side of a door was always much more interesting than the side he was on. He was also a sniffer. He sniffed like a bloodhound and he would paw and sniff every bag that came into the house. And he was an observer. His favorite spot was on top of a chair that backed up against the living room picture window where he could watch the world go by on our quiet street.

Rich was diagnosed with lymphoma in March of 2009. He was not yet eight years old. He had a stomach tumor that was successfully removed and our next stop was to the Veterinary Oncology and Hematology Center here in Norwalk, CT.

I had met Dr. Gerald Post some years earlier and remembered him as a very good and compassionate doctor. My memory was accurate. He took over Rich’s treatment and kept him in remission for two years. During most of that time Rich had little or no reaction to the treatment he was receiving. But during the late summer of 2010 Rich lost a considerable amount of weight and had all but stopped eating.

Dr. Post suggested that a feeding tube would help Rich re-gain weight and get him back on the eating track. At first I refused because all I could picture was that poor girl in Florida, her feeding tube and the media and political frenzy it had caused. But another trait of Dr. Post’s is his stubbornness and I finally gave in. Rich did end up with a feeding tube, gained weight and when he got tired of the tube Rich removed it himself, which I found out when I took him to have his bandage changed.

Rich bounced back and became the little swaggering guy he had previously been and all was going well until Thursday, March 24, 2011 when Rich started vomiting again. The cancer was back and back with a vengeance that, this time, neither Rich nor Dr. Post could overcome.

But, because of Dr. Post and the staff of the Veterinary Oncology and Hematology Center I had two additional years with my guy and I will be forever grateful for that additional time.

Rich was a remarkable cat with a huge, remarkable personality. He was the little “supervisor” of everything and gave us many years of pleasure. I believe he felt the same. I will miss him running to greet me whenever I walked in the front door as I will miss him arriving sometime during the night to sleep curled up next to my pillow as I will just miss him in all those other intervening moments.