to our sweet Bittle, Angelica, one of our five rescued cats.
In January, in a post titled right now I struggle for words, we shared with the community that she had failing kidneys.
In the bit more than six weeks since, we have been doing what we can, giving her fluids subcutaneously, changing her diet, making sure she was comfortable.
Overnight we realized we had a problem - she was in a dark place, trembling, lethargic. Doing a skin-pinch test we saw that she was still dehydrated.
We gave her fluids, and then she still tried to drink more, but was having trouble standing.
This morning we took her in to the emergency veterinary clinic. We had her thoroughly checked out, and the prognosis was not good. Her kidney function was totally out of range, and she was having other problems as well. We could have hospitalized her for several days to try to get her stable, but she would not return to full health. She had in the past 6 weeks lost 20% of her body weight, which was already quite low. And even were she stabilized, it was only 50-50 that she could survive with any quality of life. There was always a high risk of stroke, and with both of us gone during the day the fear was that she might suffer in our absence.
We regretfully had to decide to say goodbye.
We held her for a while, then were with her as she was put to sleep, ensuring that she could see us as she passed.
We are both still devastated.
We brought her home so the other cats could know - her body is now in her favorite place, and tomorrow we will take her to our vet to have her cremated.
We got a final paw print.
And now we weep.
We are grateful for the 9 years she blessed our lives.
She was such a sweet animal.
We are blessed to share our lives with creatures like this.
goodbye, Angelica.
God Bless, our sweet Bittle.