Thread by @LizzyBaine

My cat died tonight.

I’m utterly heartbroken and gutted.

I held her all night long, hoping she would bounce back enough that I could talk to the vet first thing in the morning about her meds and diagnosis and how none of it made sense.

A thread, because I’m trying to process.

This cat has been with me for 19 years. Half my life. I was a sophomore or junior in college, and for some reason I decided, with absolute certainty, that I must have a cat (in spite of my dad’s very firm no).

Here he is a few years later. He loved her. She adored him.

When she was a kitten, she would leap on my head and dig her nails into my scalp. I got very little sleep during those first few months. Then her thing became chewing on my wet hair when I went to bed after a shower. She still did that, from time to time.

She was there with me through many heartbreaks. She let me soak her fur in tears on countless occasions. She was there when my family was homeless and I had no friends, just her. She lived in hotels and confined to bedrooms, even a small cage a bit when we stayed with grandpa.

She’s seen four family dogs come and go in her lifetime. She was always there.
She never really got the hang of playing, but did enjoy watching you flail toys around like an idiot.

She was terrible as a mouser. She’d practically hold the door open for them.

She would do this thing, frequently, where she’d tilt her head at you and smack her lips like a little old lady. Sometimes you could get her to do it back if you did it first.
She had the fluffiest raccoon tail, and little marshmallow toes.

She yelled a lot. She was very demanding. Primarily at me, to get out of her chair, or go to bed because she needs my butt to sleep on, or just to let you know she’s in charge. She had this adorable gait, never running, always kind of prancing.

The last few years, she’s had the whole upstairs to herself - my bedroom and my “study”. She had her own fish, that she’d sit and watch. She didn’t like coming downstairs with the other cats or the dog. She was a princess.

Two weeks ago, I took her to the vet because she was sneezing a lot. I wanted to get her teeth checked and have them run bloodwork since she’s a senior. But she really wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.
They pulled a tooth, but I had to go back for an xray

The bloodwork came back good. But she had a UTI and the vet asked if I’d noticed blood in her urine as she described it as “overtly bloody”. I hadn’t. She didn’t have bloody urine... until the day she got back from the vet.

They prescribed an antibiotic and anti-nausea, noting she also had pancreatitis as an afterthought. “Don’t worry, just give her the anti-nausea”.
She started peeing straight blood. For the entire course of the antibiotic, it really didn’t clear up.

The vet recommended an ultrasound. I was already $650 in the hole with vet bills AND my dad had to go to the hospital and get a pacemaker, AND we had to fix the car to pass e-check, and I wasn’t really sure about this ultrasound. I asked if there were other options.

So the vet gave me some prednisolone, and said if it’s inflammation it should clear up in a couple days.
I started her on it Saturday.

Now, mind you, she was still acting pretty much fine. Eating, drinking, using the box (except a couple accidents overnight).
But after starting this, about 3 days in, she was weak. Tuesday, I was enticing her to eat with treats and she just wanted to lay there.

Yesterday I came home and again, she just wanted to lay around but wasn’t eating, or drinking. She climbed onto my chair, then started to throw up and fell out of the chair onto the floor. She was suddenly much weaker.

So, last night, I force fed her some KMR. She crept into her cardboard house for a while, then went to the other room. She was alert the first time I checked on her, but as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a noise.
I came out to find her collapsed and glassy-eyed.

I tried to get more KMR or water into her, then gave up and took her to bed. She laid on my chest. I cried. Then she seemed to perk up a bit, and snuggled in.
She spent a good hour purring, then napped.
Then she started to leave.

I held her as close as I could, for hours, feeling her breath, feeling her heartbeat, petting her in all the spots I knew she loved.
I held her as she left me, and wondered at how she just looked like she was asleep in the end.

So now I’m sitting and waiting for my parents to wake up and dreading having to tell them.
I’m going to go to work, which my mom won’t understand, but I have at least one thing I need to do and then I’m coming back home. I need the distraction.

I don’t want to be in this empty space. I don’t want to be here without her. I’m going to have to find a crematorium and take her body. I’m going to have to clean. I’m having a hard time sitting here and not still seeing her in my peripheral vision, laying in her basket.

I don’t know how to come home and not immediately run to see her. I don’t know how to shut off the part of my brain saying “you should have gone to another vet, you shouldn’t have given her the prednisolone”. I just don’t really know how to align myself with this new reality.

My parents are waking up now.
Wish me strength.

Ugh. I forgot to mention the little ridiculous things she’d do for attention. Like when I’d be really focused on something, or even asleep, she’d find a plastic bag or piece of paper and gently pick pick pick at it, like someone trying to stealthily open candy at the movies.

Or how she’d nudge herself between my face and my phone when I’d be laying in bed screwing around on social media. As close a proximity as necessary to make sure I knew she took priority, always. She also had a weird habit of smelling people’s noses or lips.

@threadreaderapp unroll please