In a message dated 2/8/2005 9:53:12 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Michelle,
I am so sorry for your loss, I loved hearing about your morning routine thank you for sharing I feel as though I knew you and him through your emails, and I wept for him also it may sound weird but I have an empty spot for you and Simon as well.
As far as the "what-ifs" go we all go through that stage I had too many to count with Snowball, I have to tell you though it has been a little over a month and I miss him terribly still, each cat has their own routine and influence in our lives when one passes we feel it intensly. It will get better, it always does but until then it is pure hell.
This group helped me alot through my pain and grief with Snowball I hope we can be of the same comfort for you.
Again Michelle, I am so sorry for your loss.
Huggs
Cherie
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 2/8/2005 9:39:25 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Thank you Kathy, and everyone else who has written. I have been offline for a
few days, in bed with grief mostly.
It actually was hard to medicate Simon and give him fluids and syringe feed
him sometimes, and he did try to get away from me. That is why I stopped doing
it the first time I thought he was dying. When he felt ok, it wasn't so bad,
but when he felt bad he hated it and took a while to forgive me each time. I
tried to limit how often I did it. I just wish this last time I had limited it
more as well, in terms of vet visits, etc.
I know that I must sound insane to you with all this self-blame, but I also
know that many of you must have felt this as well. I am the queen of
"what-ifs." What if I had kept him on steroid shots instead of going back to pred pills.
Would that have prevented an auto-immune reaction? What if I had kept him on
CCNU instead of letting the oncologist try Adriamycin? What if, instead of
taking him to the vet, I had done what I did the last time and just given him the
same amount of steroids and held him close until he either died or recovered?
These are not answerable questions, but they swirl around me at all times.
And the biggest one: What if I had noticed his jaundice and his decreased
appetite when it started, rather than when he was neon yellow (I did not even
notice it then but just took him in because he did not want his baby food!)? Most
cats on the feline lymphoma list serve do not have it in their bone marrow,
which he did, and which is Stage V. The day I brought him to the local vet, his
hematocrit was normal. That was a friday. By the time he saw the oncologist on
Monday it was 17. The lymphoma clearly spread into his bone marrow over
those few days, and if I had brought him in earlier it might never have done so.
I was not paying much attention to him or spending much time with him or the
others because my dog Nubi had just died of cancer. I did then what I am doing
to my other animals now-- stayed in bed, did only the minimal care, did not
pay much attention. If I could be better in my grief about the others I
probably would have caught that he was eating less and was turning yellow. I
remember thinking that there was more wet food left than usual, but I thought all
four of them were eating less because I had run out of their favorites, so I did
not think anything of it until I saw him not finish his morning baby food two
days in a row. I was not staying to watch them eat. I am just so incapable of
doing anything in grief, and I was grieving then too. And I think that
influenced the way things went with him.
Anyway, thanks for listening. His absence in the house is so strong. There
was never a moment, in the last month when he was in the main part of the house
with me, that I did not know where he was or what he was doing. He made it
known at all times, and was the center of all attention. I have this image of
the first time I fed him sour cream in bed. I had bought it the night before
to see if he would eat it because he was eating very little, weeks ago, and he
loved it. The next morning he came to cuddle in bed as always, and was laying
on his back with his legs in air, snuggled in the blankets. I was rubbing his
belly and he had his eyes squeezed tight and was purring. I went and got sour
cream and fed it to him off my fingers in bed, and he stayed like that, on his
back and purring, while eating the sour cream an getting it all over his
face. At that moment he was so blissed out, and so thought he had won the
lottery, so i try to think of him like that. It became a routine after that that
after morning cuddles I would get his sour cream and feed him some and then we
would get up. In the last week, he stopped wanting it, or eating anything in the
morning, which I guess I should have known was a sign of something. But he was
crazy energetic an eating and night and actually gaining weight, so I did not
know what to think.
Sorry for going on and on.
Thanks for all your support,
Michelle
In a message dated 2/7/05 10:53:11 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I know these things because you never said it was
hard to medicate him, that he would run from you whenever you approached
him, or
that he was indifferent to you. >>
|
