"I have done the most horrible thing in my life and I am suffering everyday and everyday I will be haunted for what I have done. My 13 1/2 year old Tazzy was a beautiful cat, my husband and I got her when she was a kitten. She was older than our children and was like a daughter to us. I trimmed her nails every Monday. She scratched things in our house but to me now all those "things" they don't matter. We just moved into a new house last year and got all new furniture. I kept her nails trimmed but for some reason she seemed to get holes in the new couch, so tiny but I saw them, and I then seemed to put my furniture at priority because I called a vet and asked them about declawing. I said she is 13, is she too old? Thinking they would say yes of course but they said no we do this all the time for older people who are taking their cats to a nursing home and have to have the cats declawed. I hung up and called 3 more vets, they said the same thing, one even told me about the new Laser declaw, I had never heard of it, they said it was less painful, fast recovery time,etc. I then talked to my husband and we decided to spend the extra to get the Laser. We took Tazzy in on November 2nd, 2008, left her there to be declawed, I was told to bring her in the morning no food past 6 pm the past day, still by 3:30 pm she still was not in surgery, I was worried she was hungry. They got her in surgery and called to say everything went well and I could pick her up in the morning. She looked the same, was eating as soon as I got her home, no bandages on her feet. I used the special litter in the big litter box that Tazzy and my other cat shared. I thought I would just keep an eye on Tazzy's paws.
     Now fast forward to Nov 20th, at night Tazzy slept in my son's bed, he told me something wet was on her and turned on the lights, her paw was bleeding, I cleaned it and everything up and the next morning called the vet, my husband took her to the vet. He said they cleaned her paw, said we need to use the right litter and never mentioned weight loss or an infection. Also her meow was so low, almost gone, and they said that was from the tube from the surgery being down her throat, this was 19 days after the surgery but I believed them. They bandaged her paw up, she had the bandage off within 1 day. Within the next few days I was questioning if she was eating, I saw her by the water bowl every day and she seemed to be herself, sleeping in the sun, in my son's bed, using the litterbox. My son said he saw her eat the one day but I said I haven't and then I would hear her going down the stairs at night and figured she was eating. Then there was two times my husband and I found her in our bathtubs, she for some reason was laying in them. 
     Her breath got really stinky and she looked so bad. We saw that her thumb paw was big, this is the first time I seen the swelling, I had been looking at her paws but the thumb paw I must have not looked at it, just the four fingers, I saw it was big and saw a little hard piece of something and pulled at it (I don't know if was glue or litter) then a big blood rush came out, black blood, I flipped out and then blood clots came out and I was so scared, I kissed her and called the vet and said can I bring her right now, I took her in and they said she had a bad infection,they got the pills and I said can you give her an injection and they said yes and they kept her all day and gave her fluids and force fed her. I picked her up that evening which was Nov 26th Wedensday, They wanted to keep her over night but with Thanksgiving they couldn't. So they told me to force feed her. She looked so much healthier that day and the next. We fed her every 4 hours and on Friday we were taking her in again for a check up. I told them she had diarrhea they gave me a medicine for it and said she looked so much better. 
     Then that Friday night it seemed a little harder for us to feed her, by Saturday even harder, I then gave her the meds for diarrhea Saturday. Saturday night she looked so bad again just like before, we knew she was going to die, Sunday morning I got up and checked on her she was sleeping, 10 minutes later I went over and picked her up and called to my husband, my other cat came over sniffed her and then starting howling, within minutes she jerked her body, meowed at me twice while looking into my eyes and then she died. 
     It's been over 3 months and I am so much worse off then I was before, I am dreaming of her, I have so much guilt for what I have done. I lost my baby, she would have been 14 this April, she was still playful, she loved us, she counted on us to take care of her and I let her down, over some stupid furniture that now I have been wanting to burn, Material things are nothing, my cat was my life and I took it for granted. Laser Surgery was not better, yes I made mistakes, not seeing the signs, and that is part of my guilt, but the decision to get her declawed is the worst decision I have ever made, it took a life, my Tazzy's life. I will not be able to get past this, what I have done, the torture my baby went through. DON'T EVER DECLAW, I would do anything to have her damaging my couches right now, I would let her tear my house down to have her right now, I hate myself for what I have done. Learn from my story PLEASE REMEMBER MY STORY FOR OTHERS."

http://declawhallofshame.com/