I will preface this now that this post has sad content dealing with the death of a pet. If that is upsetting to you, please feel free to sit this one out.
Oh hey there! Look at this! My poor, forgotten blog! I had such good intentions to be doing this every other week, and it’s turned into little spurts here and there every year and a half or so. Good at time management, I am not.
There’s really not much new going on in our lives. I do have to report that, sadly, we had to put our sweet Munchkin down around Thanksgiving. That was a really hard day for us.
We had taken her to the vet in October because she had lost quite a bit of weight. They did some blood work and it came back that she was in kidney failure. Not a great diagnosis, but many cats are able to live for a few years when they’re properly taken care of. They put her on a new soft food diet that was specially formulated for cats with kidney issues, and had her on potassium goo that she was not fond of. “Oh, its made to taste good, she’ll just lick it right off your finger!” they told me. HAH! That’s laughable. Ever the picky one, she did not, in fact, lick it off my finger. I ended up having to get a syringe and hold her down and open her mouth with one arm and hand, and put the syringe far enough in her mouth with the other that she would just swallow with the other. I think I might have put Steve Irwin to shame a few times.
Cut to about two weeks later, she was not improving. She had lost more weight, she wasn’t eating, and she was very lethargic, even for her standards. I took her to the emergency vet on Sunday morning, where they gave me the saddest news anyone could give a pet owner. She had lost more weight. An alarming amount of weight, really. She was dehydrated, her body temperature was low, and upon further examination, there was a large mass on the back of her throat that hadn’t been there when I took her to the regular vet two weeks prior. I know it wasn’t there. I watched him open her mouth and look in with a flashlight.
Munchkin had cancer. An aggressive type that is hard to operate on the best of circumstances, and with it being on the back of her throat, it made it that much harder. She had also, quite frankly, just given up. She was just a shell of the cat she was. “We can try to operate” the emergency vet said. “There’s always a small possibility, but if that’s something you want to try, I’ll get you a price list and we can start treatment. I have to tell you, though, if it came on this fast, it’s probably only going to come back.”
“I don’t think that would be fair to her,” I replied. “She’s so weak, I honestly think the best thing we can do for her right now is to let her go.” I was practically sobbing. Kudos to the staff at CPVETS in State College, they really have a wonderful team.
“In that case, I’ll let you call your husband so he can be here. We’ll keep her on a heating pad and give her some fluids to keep her comfortable. While you’re gone though, if she takes a turn for the worse, do I have your permission to do the procedure in your absence? I know that’s a hard thing to hear, but…”
“Yes”.
I called Rob, who was trying to get some sleep before he went into work. I went to pick him up. When we got back, my mom and her fiance had arrived as well. I had called her on my way to the vet. Thank goodness for moms.
The procedure itself, while sad, was fairly quick. I’d say within a minute or so, she had passed on. For those who’ve never had to put a pet down, there are three injections: One is to put the animal to sleep, one is to flush the first into the system faster, and the last is to stop their heart. We were all there with her in the room. We were all crying. Again, kudos to the staff at CPVETS for being as kind and caring as they are. I honestly can’t recommend them enough.
“You did Munchkin a great kindness. Take as much time as you need. When you’re ready, you can go out the back door if you want so you don’t have to deal with the people in the waiting room.”
We chose to have Munchkin cremated. The company that did her cremation is fantastic as well. CPVETS took care of transporting her body and collecting the remains, so all I had to do was swing by and pick them up a week later. There was a lovely condolence card with the story of the rainbow bridge from the cremation company, as well as a cast of her paw print in clay, and a tiny floral carved box with her ashes inside.
CPVETS and our regular vets office also sent us condolence cards, which was incredibly kind of them.
This was incredibly hard on us, as I’m sure it is with any pet owner who has to make that decision. Munchkin was the first pet we owned together, and we only got to be with her for seven short years, which is only about half the lifespan of a typical healthy cat.
People might wonder why I chose to update with such a sad topic. As sad as it is, death is a fact of life. It’s the only thing that’s certain in our lives. I also know we made the right decision in letting her go. She had given up, and to try to put her tiny, frail body through surgeries and cancer treatments would have just prolonged her suffering. Yes, we absolutely weren’t ready to let her go, but to try to hold onto her would have been extremely selfish of us.
I hope that in reading this and knowing a little about the euthanasia process can help others make that hard decision and help ease them through their grief.
bigbeautifulbohemian 