In Memory of Cloudy

We suffered the terrible loss of Cloudy this summer. He had reoccurring fevers in the previous months which they thought were tick borne, but the fevers never completely stopped. In fact, they became much worse. I also noticed in early July that Cloudy’s right eye looked different. There seemed to be changes daily. Dr Mary Beth arranged for a specialist, Dr Gardner, from a large equine hospital to come out to ultrasound Cloudy thinking he had an internal abscess causing the high fevers. I told Dr Gardner about the eye and she examined his eye with the ultrasound and found a mass. She was shocked at the daily difference and how fast the tumor was growing. We arranged for a surgeon to come out on July 12th to remove his right eye and take out the tumor. Our vets, Dr Gardner and Dr Fugaro, collaborated on getting a diagnosis for Cloudy. Cloudy was so good through all these procedures.

After his surgery Bruce and I were caring for Cloudy around the clock. He was adjusting to just having one eye, but the fevers became relentless. Our vet gave us the horrible news about the biopsy results of the tumor, a very aggressive type of cancer. We could no longer control his fevers that were caused by the cancer, and they were reaching 104-105 degrees daily.

Cloudy’s passing is extremely difficult because he was not that old and before this, he was healthy. It was such a shock to all of us because his illness happened so quickly. Cloudy is greatly missed on the farm.