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izzy
47 years old
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United Kingdom
Born July-21-1976
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Joined: 13-May 04
Profile Views: 718*
Last Seen: 16th August 2005 - 03:43 PM
Local Time: Mar 28 2024, 10:34 AM
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izzy

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4 Jun 2004
well guess what... i think i might finally get some peace about cleo's grave, vets, etc. i supose this could be a long story. i hope you have the patience to read it.

i can't remember who posted it, but ever since someone started a thread about changing vets (because they didn't feel that they had a very good experience around their pet's dying... sorry, i can't remember who you were...) i've been thinking and thinking about my own vet practice and feeling more and more upset about some of the things i felt were handled insensitively around cleo's death. (does anyone remember when i posted some of those terrible things one of the vets said to me when cleo was dying?)

so my friend is with a different vet practice to us near where we live and his cat has been terribly terribly ill, and has just had surgery. (btw, she's going to be ok smile.gif , but he didn't know that until after the surgery was over, very upsetting for him and his wife.) they don't have a car so my husband and i offered to take him to the vet's to pick their cat up after the surgery today. i said i'd go along and ask the vet nurse some questions about the practice, and there were all these leaflets on the reception desk about everything from pet insurance to neutering to berevement and pet cremation. i just thought, 'our vet never talked to us about berevement or cremation or anything. we weren't even given the berevement hotline number. like that would have been so difficult.' and my friend said when it looked like his cat would die, their vet actually talked to him about that. ours didn't really. (getting closer to the end of the story, honest.)

and do you remember that i've been upset about cleo's grave since the day she died and we burried her, because i didn't feel like we did it right. we have a very small city garden and it was much more difficult to dig than we had thought and we couldn't get it as deep as we wanted and i wasn't sure that we would always be in this house and what if we moved, and it was upsetting thinking of her everytime we were in our garden etc etc? so i read the leaflet at our friend's vet about pet cremation and a local pet crematorium actually has a service where they will come and exhume your pet and cremate them, with an urn for the ashes and everything, especially in cases where someone is moving house (which we're not, but may someday)! i had thought it was too late to do something like that.

so i called them and talked to the guy at the crematorium and got a price (not cheap, but i'm willing to pay) and we're going ahead with it next wednesday. the thought of exhuming her is too terrible to think about, but at least it's happening now by a professional, and not after we move someday by someone digging up the garden to relandscape (which would be worse). they seemed very sympathetic and sensitive and easy to talk to.

the urn we chose was a wooden carved cat figurine. i feel like with this and with moving vet i may have some closure now. i just wanted to share that with you. hope you made it to the end of the post. unsure.gif
1 Jun 2004
not doing well the last couple days. i haven't been here as much lately, because i find i just get so upset, but right now i'm already am upset, so i'm here.

i found cleo's brush lying on a table the other day. it still has her fur in it. and it just made me relive her last day again. i would have taken some of the fur out and kept it for my scrapbook, but...

on her last day, before i knew how serious or what her sudden illness was, i knew she was feeling ill so i brushed her to try to comfort her. (she loved being brushed and would purr and purr) i noticed that her skin was much drier than usual and a lot of dry flakes of skin were coming off in the brush with her fur. that was because she was so dehydrated from her kidneys failing. i need to clear the brush out and trow it away so that i can use it for heathcliff, but i can't. she died on the 8th of May, and the fur is still there in the brush, and i can't trow it away. in a way, it's all i have left of her. but i can't, i just can't save her fur when it has the flakes of her skin in it that represent her illness. (and besides, it's not terribly hygenic)

maybe i should throw the whole brush out and buy heathcliff a new one. he never likes being brushed anyway, maybe i'll get him a different kind. that was cleo's brush. she loved it. maybe i should take the fur and burry it near her grave. i'm so upset, how can i do it?

i'm finding it so hard to let go. i've not been very well lately and she's not been there, like she always was when i was ill (which is often), to comfort me. my two cats had such a wonderful balance between them of taking care of me, and heathcliff still does, but he has always been the one that won't come to me, but will allow me to pick him up for a cuddle when i need to. cleo didn't want me to come to her, but would aproach me when i was upset. she'd take her little paw and gently pat me on the arm like a human friend would. (it was very cute)

i love heathcliff so so much, but sometimes it was nice to have cleo approach me to comfort me. and she's not here.

i'm just feeling aweful. sad.gif
22 May 2004
i'm getting there. gradually. i even feel a bit guilty, because i'm starting to get on with things again and i'm not so utterly depressed as i was.

i made a photo album of pictures of the cats and put a nice picture of our cleo in a frame on the wall with our other cat heathcliff when they were curled up and nuzzling together like they used to do.

things at work had been really bad (i was already suffering from stress related illness when cleo suddenly died), so after cleo died and i was incapacitated by stress and depression, i made the decision to resign my job last week. i don't regret it. i think it's the reason why i've been able to start to move on. everything's been so fast, that i worry that i shouldn't be getting better yet.

i made a flower bed over her grave today, and that helped too.

husband and i have also decided to get a kitten. i know it's still very soon, but we thought actually that it was important for our family and for heathcliff's sake that we did it soon. she's too young yet, so we can't pick her up anyway until july. that's a good time frame i think. we went with a breeder this time, not the rescue centre. i'm not saying that we wouldn't in the future, but i just don't have the emotional energy right now to put into rehabilitating another abused cat. i have to be honest with myself about that. and a persian will be different enough from my lovely cleo, moggy, that i don't think i'll feel guilty like i would if i thought i was trying to 'replace' her. she was one of a kind.

i've not been here as often, but i think that's good, because it means that i've been keeping myself relatively busy, rather than spending whole days on the computer like i'm prone to do. thank you all so much for being supportive. i've been thinking of you all. thank you.

here's our new kitten, Minerva. we'll call her Minnie from day to day.
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18 May 2004
does anyone know of any support groups etc. for people living in the UK? I live here permanantly now, but am American by birth. I love my British home, but I'm struggling right now because I do feel that pet berevement is so much more accepted as being 'ok' in America than it is here in the UK. This site is helpful, but it might also be good to talk to people in person.
17 May 2004
I was doing better, but not today. I shouldn't have brought her home to burry her. Everytime I go into my garden, it reminds me of Cleo. Will I ever be able to enjoy the outdoors and my garden again? Have I ruined the house and home I love so much with the constant reminder of grief? And now I can't undo it.
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