(no subject)

So, that was a thing.

The full story is that when Light came home, Princess was lying at the bottom of the stairs, covered in her own vomit and unable to move her back legs. He rushed her to the vet. I was in class, and didn't answer his first couple calls, but eventually struggled my way outside to call him, then ran back inside to get my stuff to catch a taxi to porter square vet.

When I get there, a woman takes me into the back where Princess is wrapped in a few towels, Light is standing near by, they're blowing a little oxygen into her face because fluid is accumulating in her lungs. She's already gotten painkiller, there was a stent in her leg, and her face was matted with vomit, and she was making sad and confused sounds. We were told that treatment would be unlikely to do her any good, and that we could probably give her a couple more painful weeks. I don't know if I said something first, or Light did, but the decision was reached to put her down.

At this point I'm sobbing, and I'm trying to tell her that everything's going to be okay, we're going to fix it, she's a good baby, I love her. I get down so she can see me without having to lift her head, and I sort of hold/pet her head and watch the nictating membranes go across her eyes, and even though she still sort of looks alive to me, the vet listens to her heart and says she's gone. And, as we'd been warned, there were a couple final twitches, which had nothing to do with her being alive and I think I started outright wailing at that point.

We decide to cremate her, and we'll get her ashes in a week or so. I have no idea what we'll do with them. It's not like we can scatter them somewhere, she wasn't tied to a location, she was part of what made every set of four walls we lived in home.

Now, for the coping part. I'm trying to remember the 11 or so years I did get with her, but it's not really working as well as it might. Ativan cushions me enough that I can actually talk and read, and remember the good bits, the elbow biting and the head butting, and I can try to stop remembering what she looked like as she died, but the big trauma sort of blocks out the sun.

She was fine when I left in the morning, and then she was gone. And part of me is screaming that I have another four animals, and they're all going to die too, and can't I just drink until it stops hurting so much?

Light tells me we did very well by her, that we were fantastic cat-parents, I didn't let her down, I didn't do anything wrong, we fixed what was hurting her as quickly as we could and she knew that we were there in the end.

I've stayed out of work for two days, I kind of have to go back tomorrow, and I can probably hold it together for the six or so hours it'll take to get to work, work, and come back home. And then I'll get another three days of not having to pretend everything's fine.

I don't want to leave the house, ever again. She was sad, and I wasn't there for her, and I walk around my house and stare at all the other animals to make sure they are breathing, even though I've had it been proven that I can leave the house with an apparently healthy pet and still have lost it by the end of the day.

Cushion's wearing off.

(no subject)

So, that was a thing.

The full story is that when Light came home, Princess was lying at the bottom of the stairs, covered in her own vomit and unable to move her back legs. He rushed her to the vet. I was in class, and didn't answer his first couple calls, but eventually struggled my way outside to call him, then ran back inside to get my stuff to catch a taxi to porter square vet.

When I get there, a woman takes me into the back where Princess is wrapped in a few towels, Light is standing near by, they're blowing a little oxygen into her face because fluid is accumulating in her lungs. She's already gotten painkiller, there was a stent in her leg, and her face was matted with vomit, and she was making sad and confused sounds. We were told that treatment would be unlikely to do her any good, and that we could probably give her a couple more painful weeks. I don't know if I said something first, or Light did, but the decision was reached to put her down.

At this point I'm sobbing, and I'm trying to tell her that everything's going to be okay, we're going to fix it, she's a good baby, I love her. I get down so she can see me without having to lift her head, and I sort of hold/pet her head and watch the nictating membranes go across her eyes, and even though she still sort of looks alive to me, the vet listens to her heart and says she's gone. And, as we'd been warned, there were a couple final twitches, which had nothing to do with her being alive and I think I started outright wailing at that point.

We decide to cremate her, and we'll get her ashes in a week or so. I have no idea what we'll do with them. It's not like we can scatter them somewhere, she wasn't tied to a location, she was part of what made every set of four walls we lived in home.

Now, for the coping part. I'm trying to remember the 11 or so years I did get with her, but it's not really working as well as it might. Ativan cushions me enough that I can actually talk and read, and remember the good bits, the elbow biting and the head butting, and I can try to stop remembering what she looked like as she died, but the big trauma sort of blocks out the sun.

She was fine when I left in the morning, and then she was gone. And part of me is screaming that I have another four animals, and they're all going to die too, and can't I just drink until it stops hurting so much?

Light tells me we did very well by her, that we were fantastic cat-parents, I didn't let her down, I didn't do anything wrong, we fixed what was hurting her as quickly as we could and she knew that we were there in the end.

I've stayed out of work for two days, I kind of have to go back tomorrow, and I can probably hold it together for the six or so hours it'll take to get to work, work, and come back home. And then I'll get another three days of not having to pretend everything's fine.

I don't want to leave the house, ever again. She was sad, and I wasn't there for her, and I walk around my house and stare at all the other animals to make sure they are breathing, even though I've had it been proven that I can leave the house with an apparently healthy pet and still have lost it by the end of the day.

Cushion's wearing off.