Lost Our Cat Last Month, Sleeping Issues Options

[Sibby]

Hello to you all. I'm glad there's a forum to talk to people when it regards losing an animal. I'm not sure how many come on here, or if I'll get a reply, but I need to write this down somewhere.

We lost our cat Tobi on September 16. She was 12-years-old and a maine coon. We got her for my 10th birthday down at a mill. We started to see her limp on her left hind leg in mid-July. We took her to the vets and had to checked out. We thought her limping was due to my mom stepping on her shortly before, but we later found out she had severe spinal arthritis and nerve damage in her leg. She was also given an antibiotic because the vet said she probably had an infection that caused her to urinate more. After nine days she started vomiting. We took her off of it. After that she progressively gotten worse.

She wouldn't eat on her own. She was losing weight. She wasn't walking on her own. Messing herself. Urinating on the carpets. We started syringe feeding her but she was still losing weight. We kept taking her to the doctors. He gave her the equivalent drug of gravol, appetite stimulant and nothing worked. She lost 25% body weight in about a month. We tried giving her morphine and other pain medicine but it didn't work. We found out she had renal insufficiency also. She was put on Convenia because she didn't finish the other antibiotics.

I knew on Wednesday, two days before she was put down, that she was dying. She wasn't walking on her own. Barely purring, not meowing. I knew she was in pain, so I made the decision and told my mom to phone the vets. We brought her up and she was put down between 3:30 and 4 p.m. She died in my arms.

For weeks I was determined we were going to get her back to health. Then I started seeing her deteriorate. A few weeks before her death I would cry profusely when I went to bed. When she died I didn't cry until a few days after, but it wasn't the same. I have no interest in food but I eat, because I have to. No interest in reading, but I do it out of habit. Music, shows and movies don't interest me. Nothing does. i haven't been the same. On Saturday, October 1, I couldn't get to bed until 6 a.m. Three nights after that I didn't sleep at all. I'm not meaning just a few hours of sleep. I'm meaning NO sleep. And when I couldn't sleep I got extremely angry. I wanted to hit my fist into something so I could feel. Either I feel extreme numbness or extreme grief.

on the fifth day I went to a walk-in-clinic to get some help. I was put on Ativan for 10 days. I have 5 1/2 pills left. He told me to try it for a few days then don't take one. I did that but I couldn't sleep. Last night I took a half of one and I didn't sleep all throughout the night. I'm worried I am become dependent on something just to get sleep. I've tried everything. No caffeine. Dark room, silent and cool. Don't eat heavy in the evening. And still I can't sleep on my own. I feel as if I want to put myself in a hospital. What are my options?

[Sibby]

Thank you all for the supportive words. They are appreciated by my mom and I.

Ativan has worked to get me sleep, unless I take a half. I was told on the second or third day I should stop taking it to see if I could sleep on my own, but clearly I couldn't. I took a half a pill last night later than I usually do and I didn't get much sleep either.
I feel a little more relieved when I talked to my mom yesterday after posting this. The reason why I felt so horrible is that I put so much hope in her recovery that I lost my fight when she died. That fire in me that keeps me going whenever things go horrible. And putting a name to my pain helped me thankfully.

I just wanted to ask if any of you had severe insomnia after you lost your animal? And did anything help? Or did the insomnia last until you felt you healed somewhat from the pain? Did you ask for sleeping aids and did they help?

I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow regarding a safer sleeping aid. Ativan can be highly addictive and that's the last thing I want.