Feeling Alone, Guilty, And Incredibly Sad Options

[prettykitty]

Hi All:

I am a new member of this forum , and i joined because i had to put my beloved cat to sleep this past monday morning. She had diabetes for several years, and i know she did well to have lived so long with the disease. She had close calls before, infact one time about 3 years ago we thought we would have to put her to sleep but she made a miraculous recovery on the day we went to the vet to say goodbye. Several times her diabetes would gett out of control, or she were more or less insulin which meant many vets vists and blood tests. However this last time she could no longer fight..the vet said all her major organ system were shutting down. She had trouble eating or no interest in eating for about a week and a half prior to her death..i think we tried every cat food available. She had become extremely dehydrated about two weeks prior, and we took her into the vet and once they rehydrated her she seemed back to normal again for a few days. Then she began to sneeze and we took her into the vet again. He did an exam and said she didn't seem dehydrated, and she likely just had a cold, nothing serious (this was last thursday, the 15th). He did blood work and said everything came back just fine, and that she actually had normal glucose levels and didn't need insulin shots anymore. Naturally i was overjoyed at this.

However she wasn't getting any better and by the weekend, she not only couldn't eat, she couldn't even sip water without throwing up. She was throwing up blood and bile several times a day. On sunday we took her into the vet again (a different vet) and she said she would try rehydrating her but it seemed like it was either pancreat*its or a tumor. By late sunday she was showing some improvement, but by monday morning she still hadn't urinated (even when given drugs that should induce it) and was fading fast. The vet called and said we needed to come in immediately and that she needed to be put to sleep.

Although i have had many animals before, i have never been present during the euthanasia..but this was truely my cat, sheloved me and i loved her and i wanted to be there with her. I had a few minutes before to say goodbye but she already seemed like she was mostly gone. My cat always purred, even when she wasn't happy..but especially when i was petting her. She didn't purr once, or meow. So i just talked to her and tried to comfort her as best i could although i was in a state myself, crying uncontrollably. I was surprised by how fast the procedure was..once she was injected she was gone in about 20 seconds.

I am feeling a great sense of guilt over this...i wish i had taken her on more excursions outside, i wish i hadnt' gotten annoyed at times when she had bugged me while i was working. I feel so alone now at night and i am finding it hard to concentrate on work during the day..my thoughts always seem to turn to her and then i start crying .

I know i will eventualy get another cat, but i am not ready yet. I miss her too much, she was my friend for 11 years (since i was 14 years old). She was such a loving and special cat who really had a personality...i feel she was more of a person then a cat. I just can't imagine it being possible to have that bond with another animal, and in a way i feel like it would diminish our relationship if i did.

Sorry for writing a book here, i just needed to get this all out, and if you have made it this far, thank you for reading.

EDIT: I wanted to mention that my username is my cats favorite nickname She would get very jealous if i called anyone or anything else pretty.

[forduffy]

I am so sorry for your loss. Your kitty is beautiful. I don't know much about fixing the fuzziness. The pictures I took were not even digital so I'm kind of clueless. But rest assured, I can see how pretty she was. I experienced euthenasia for the first time in September when I had to put my dog, Duffy to sleep. Like you, Duffy had been with me since I was 16 which was a little more than half of my life. I know how hard it is to loss a member of your family. Welcome to the forum and I look forward to you sharing Nicki's life with us.