I’m So Sad
June 23rd, 2006 - 1:21 am
I was going to make this a filtered post, but there’s really no reason to do so. Many of you are my dear friends, and maybe some of you who aren’t can relate to what I am feeling. At the very least, I thought it would explain why I have been a little weird lately, and why I may be even more weird over the coming days and weeks.
Warning: The post ahead is very sad, and I am very depressed. It’s about my cat.
I am incredibly sad about my cat. There, I said it. He’s had every test there is run on him almost, and everything is in order. But still he only eats sporadically (almost a tuna-sized can a day) and to my eyes still seems to be losing weight. He can’t jump up on the couch anymore … or the bed. In fact, he wobbles when he walks now, as though he might fall over at any moment. And though he doesn’t seem to be in any pain, he most definitely isn’t the happy cat I have known for 12 years. Technically, aside from having Irritable Bowel Disease, which is under control on the new food, there isn’t anything wrong with him. He looks and acts a little better one day, and then the next he’s worse again. He’s just fading away. It’s breaking my heart.
I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.
All I can think to do is call the vet tomorrow and ask whoever answers what to do … and call the other vet to make an appointment for that ultrasound, even though a) we really can’t afford it and b) it isn’t likely to turn up anything. Then I’ll have to totally upset the cat by taking him out into the world again, and if he’s fading away anyway, I’d hate to make him miserable his last few days or weeks. And what if they put him under for the ultrasound and he doesn’t wake up? He’s so weak. I don’t know that more poking and prodding is going to help anyway, and it might make him far more miserable than he already is.
I don’t know what to do other than sit here and be sick to my stomach about it, cry about it, and seek him out wherever he’s laying at any given moment and pet him and talk to him. I know what’s coming. I can see it in clear black and white. This, whatever this is, isn’t something he’s going to come back from. These are the last days, weeks (maybe months) he’s going to be with us. Either I will have to make that horrible decision about euthanasia, or we’ll find him curled up in eternal sleep somewhere in the house one morning. I don’t really know which would be worse. It’s coming though. I can feel it. I think he can too.
Lin and I talked the other day about what to do after … you know, what “funeral” arrangements we wanted to plan on having. Did we want him cremated? Would we want to keep him in an urn … toss his ashes in some sunny spot in the yard … or somewhere further from home and beautiful … maybe the lawn at the old apartment. Or did we want to bury him in the back yard as my parents I and did with every pet we had when I was a kid (except my dog, because we just couldn’t do it). Or maybe just put him in a box and send him on his way to the trash dump some mundane Thursday morning when I wheel the bin to the curb. Yeah. We had that talk. No decisions were made at all, but at least we talked about it. I’m the one who will have to decide, and once again, I don’t know what to do. Like my dad, I’d rather not think about it until it happens. It’s a part of the process of preparing for the end though, isn’t it? Having a plan for when you know you are going to be mentally unsound and not thinking straight, so you don’t have to make big decisions when emotions are high and reason is short.
Since the decision will fall to me about what to do “after” … I have begun looking at places in the back yard. Though I worry that laying my cat to rest in my own back yard may lead to obsessive behavior on my part. That was one of the reasons I was happy to have Daddy laid to rest in a town 80 miles away from both myself and my mom. Even though we wanted to go mourn at his headstone all the time, distance and the hassle of getting there regularly kept us from doing so. It isn’t healthy in the long term to continue mourning the dead, whether they be fathers or pets. I am afraid that having a small grave in my back yard will lead to unhealthy behavior in myself. I have enough trouble fighting depression as it is without inviting enormous triggers into my life.
But he isn’t dead yet, is he? No, he’s just seemingly headed that way, and there is probably nothing at all to be done about it, no matter how many more tests we run or how healthy the food is we feed him. He is simply on the decline of life, and I don’t think I can handle it. I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know what to do … except sit here and worry and fret and cry as quietly as I can to avoid waking up Lin, because he really needs his sleep right now.
I am so sad, so depressed, and I don’t know what to do about that either. I’m still not 100% physically myself yet, and now mentally I am a ragged nerve. One big red raw nerve … with tear ducts. I hurt all over, and it’s just in my head, and the fact that my muscles are all pulled so tightly they feel like they might snap at any moment. I have huge dark circles under my eyes, because I am not getting enough sleep. I’m afraid to go to sleep, because what if the cat gets worse while I am asleep? What if he dies alone on the kitchen floor? Even when I do sleep, I’m not really sleeping. I am constantly listening for unusual cat sounds.
I don’t know what to do. My head feels like it’s going to explode. My stomach feels like it wants to vomit. My hands are shaking. I am so tired. I just want to sleep … really sleep … and wake up tomorrow to a cat that is doing better. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen though, because I think my cat is dying.
He’s curled up right now on the kitchen floor, one of the three places he can be found these days: the kitchen floor, the den floor or under Lin’s workbench. Unless Lin and I are eating in the living room. Then he’s sitting at our feet waiting for table scraps, which we have been giving him as many as he will eat. When I walk into the kitchen after hitting the post button, he’ll look up at me and purr when I rub his head and scratch him behind his ears. And I will feel every bone is his small underweight body, and it will break my heart all over again.
I don’t know what to do. It’s so horribly sad, and I just don’t know how to handle it.
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3 Responses to “I’m So Sad”
First of all, big huge {{{HUGS}}} for you. I know what you’re going through as it was just over a year ago when my cat died. It was the day after Father’s Day, in fact, and Father’s Day is always a sad day for me since I lost my Dad.
For months before my cat passed, I would get panicky every time I didn’t see him, he wasn’t in one of his usual resting places, or when he didn’t at least move his ears or lift his head when I approached him. I feared finding him dead. I know how much feeling like that sucks. When you spend so many years with an animal, they are literally part of your family and it’s hard to imagine them not being there one day. Just like you, I knew he was not doing well, but I couldn’t see where he was in pain at all. My cat went totally blind, but he still found his litter box and his food and he ate fairly well until almost the end, where he did lose a bit of weight. He was a pretty hefty cat for many years (20 lbs or so).
It wasn’t until the weekend of Father’s Day last year that I visibly saw a drastic change in his behavior and knew then that he had really gone downhill. I had never had an animal put to sleep and didn’t want to make that decision, but that weekend, I knew. I called first thing Monday morning to make the appointment. He should have probably gone in that morning, but I had to work and the vet’s office didn’t open until I was already at work, so I made the appointment for the next day.
I had decided on cremation. Ever since I was young, we had always buried our animals in the backyard. My problem with that is that we moved and now they are no longer near me. We buried my dog in the backyard of the house we rented for 10 years and I seriously thought about having him moved and buried where I live now. I didn’t want to see that, though, so I didn’t have it done. I still get very emotional about my dog because he died such a tragic death at an early age.
Anyhow I knew that if I had my cat cremated, that I could at least take his ashes with me if I ever moved again. I doubt I’ll move unless it will be out of the country in 10 or so years (or however much longer before this country ends up being a police state), but when I do, I can take my cat with me.
Knowing I had made the appointment for the next day, both hubby and I doted on the cat that evening, even though it pained me terribly to see him just laying in one spot, because it hurt him to try to get up and move. We brought him water and gave him a little bit of roast beef and other goodies he liked to eat. Even though he hadn’t been eating much, he did eat the roast beef, and hubby felt almost like the cat just ate it because he knew we were worried and it would make us feel better in some small way if he could show appreciation for what we were trying to do. My other cat would not go near him and was meowing a good bit. I think she knew.
That night before I went to bed, I went to pet him once again and see how he was. I touched him and he was already gone. What I had feared had happened. Yet at that moment, I also felt relief that it was over and that he had died naturally instead of being put to sleep. Since my other cat was going nuts, I rolled his body up in a blanket and put him on the bathroom floor with the door closed until the next morning when I was scheduled to take him to the vet. I put him in the truck and I brushed his fur (even though it didn’t matter, but it was comforting to me at least) and I took him to the vet for his cremation.
They had asked me if I wanted a private cremation (where it’s just your pet) or they do group cremations with several pets and the owners get ashes but they can be from more than one animal. I chose private, even though it was more expensive. I picked out an urn as well. About a week later, they called me and told me I could come pick up the ashes. They put the urn in this bright yellow gift bag, and I could do nothing but cry when I saw it and took it home. Now I know if I ever see someone walking out of the vet’s office with a brightly colored gift bag, I’m going to start crying, because I’ll know what they are picking up.
It’s been a comfort to know that in some way, my cat is still with us. The urn, which is very attractive, sits on a shelf with some other knick-knacks and no one ever picks it out and knows what it is. Every so often, I walk by and run my hand over it as a way of remembering the good times we had together and I am thankful for the years we had with each other. He was a stray and I provided a good home for him.
OK, after writing this, I’m sitting here crying.
I wish you weren’t having to go through this because I know how sad it is. And I know there really isn’t anything I can do to make it better, though I wish there was. It’s the saddest and hardest part about having pets and many times I feel that I just wouldn’t want to go through it again and I consider not having more pets. But the love and the companionship they bring to our lives far outshadows the pain we feel when they get older and pass away. I wasn’t nearly as sad about my cat as I was about my dog because my cat lived a long life with us. My dog lived a little over a year, and that was really sad.
If there’s anything at all I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.
All I can tell you for advice is to love him, be there for him, trust your judgment about when the time is right, and your vet’s judgment as well if he is someone you trust. I think it’s a good idea to decide whether you want to bury him or cremate him and that’s all up to you. I know I made the right decision for me and my cat. Know that this too, shall pass, but you will always have the wonderful memories of your cat and your years together. If you want to talk or need anything at all, you can email me anytime.
One other thing that I don’t think I had shared with anyone…My father died on July 8, 1986. So that time of year has always been a sad time for me. Last year when my boss’s Bengal cat had just one kitten, she offered to give him to me and even though it wasn’t very long after my cat had passed, we agreed to take the kitten. My other cat was acting very lonely and meowing a lot so we thought maybe she wouldn’t be as lonely. I think now she probably wishes she were alone a bit more, as the kitten wants to play with her so bad at times. Anyhow, it turns out that the kitten (Mr. Peabody) was born on July 8th of last year. So I had one cat die the day after Father’s Day and this kitten was born on the day my Father died. It seemed meant to be. This year I will have a reason to be happy on July 8th, as my cat is getting a birthday party, complete with a picture of him in a silly party hat (which he is probably going to hate). He’s a big kitty now and is close to 20 lbs himself. I’m sure there will be pictures from the festivities. I wasn’t sure I was ready for another cat at the time, but sometimes I think things work out a certain way for a certain reason, so just wanted to let you know that.
{{{{{HUGS}}}}}
Orb,
Being a long time animal lover myself you have my sympathy about Fuzza.
No matter what religious beliefs you hold you have to consider the Spirit factor of which we all hold dear. If we were mere drones without personality nor the will to love each other then we would not know anything of Spirit.
It is who we are and animals are no different so in effect it is our Spirits that draw us to one another no matter what the species. Fuzz’s Spirit will never diminish.
Big Hugs to you, Lin, and Fuzza
I’m so sorry to hear about Fuzza. I was also hoping he would get better,
One of my cats died last year and I didn’t have the heart to throw his body away. I ended up burying him in the backyard and I planted sunflowers on the top soil. Weeks later when the flowers grew they ended up being gigantic sunflowers and the birds would feed off of their seeds. We thought it was funny that the birds were eating seeds fertilized by my kitty.
Many hugs to you and to your kitty.