| TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7TH; |
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| you left this earth on this gorgeous monday when the autumn sun was fired up like the color of your fur.
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"This month's full moon will appear the night of Monday, Oct. 6, peaking at 10:48 p.m. CT, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. As the Harvest Moon, it will be the largest and brightest full moon of the year."
something tells me you must’ve arrived to paradise right then—with a little mischief in your eyes (as usual).
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| we were a little family of 4. we’d been that way for 14 years.
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| i’d often morbidly wondered which cat would be the first to go. all bids were open and yeah, guess i’ve got my answer now.
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| in utter honesty i'm kinda bummed out that the girl cats are still alive while you’re not anymore. outright f*cked up, ain't it? might be part of grief. grief makes you thinking f*cked up things.
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| maybe it’s more difficult cuz you’re the first one to go. ya know. i dunno. like a bandaid being ripped out.
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| such as looking in the rearview mirror in a speeding car, overtime the pain might wane a little. but for now i take one breath and i'm ok, then another and i'm not ok. there’s a gigantic lump stuck in the back of my throat and i feel nauseous at every tiny memory cuz it’s just too overwhelming. (what can i say, i’ve always been terrible with finality).
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| you were like my shadow. in a weird way i’m feeling a bit like bart in the simpsons episode when he sells his soul and freaks out.
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| swear to gawd, i would’ve watched you a million more times sleeping in my white plastic chair basking in the afternoon sun peeking through the window while i'm working.
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| also i know you wouldn’t give two sh*ts about that, but you bled my budget dry. and i can’t even begin to be mad.
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| i feel so f*cking empty.
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| SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12TH;
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| so. the aftermath of coconut’s passing. i don't have a shrink so i guess i'll "speak" here? & i'll most likely be rambling like in the good ol’ livejournal days, but whatever. *shrug*
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| it’s now autumn. each year i cannot freakin’ WAIT for autumn which quickly became my favorite season as i got older. however while i used to see utter beauty in nature slowly dying with the leaves falling off trees, for the past days all i could see is pain. cuz it’s never been part of the deal, right—him dying along with everything else. if only the crisp air could help me freeze my emotions just a little bit…
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| the last week has been hell. my couch suddenly feels way too large and i keep longing for him to pop up in his favorite places to chill out. the balance in the house feels entirely broken as this once happy cocoon has morphed into a triggering place for me. i’ve been escaping over at malls, the parent’s place, etc, to distract myself but nothing really works, does it?
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| i know death is part of life and i’m sorta cool with it (hence probably why i still dig type-o negative so much), but it’s that goddamn anxiety. and the guilt. oh dear. THE GUILT.
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| punky was the first one to get diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a while back. it made a lot of sense when she did, cuz she’d lost a bunch of weight and had all of the other symptoms associated with the disease. with the help of the mobile vet, some (a lot of) methimazole and continuous blood draws to keep the T4 in check, we mostly got the situation under control.
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| later down the road, coconut also got diagnosed with hyperthyroidism upon a vet check-up when he wasn’t feeling too good. his condition wasn’t as bad as punky’s, however, and honestly i was just relieved to find out that it was “just that” cuz 1) i was already familiar with the disease/treatment, 2) it wasn’t diabetes when it easily could’ve been diabetes given the symptoms he was exhibiting. erhhh, god knows i did NOT wish to give injections to a cat for the rest of his sorry life! but anyway. it’s a bit complicated cuz his T4 numbers for thyroid turned worse than punky’s at the very beginning, though strangely he didn’t nearly seem as affected. the bump on his neck was a lot smaller, for instance. in all honesty, punky was still looking like more of a mess even while under treatment than coconut pre-treatment at this point.
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| for countless months, this became the routine: methimazole ear cream 2.5mg given twice a day for coconut + methimazole ear cream 5mg given twice a day for punky + blood draws from mobile vet to check the T4 levels with rollercoaster results for both cats.
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| last time punky had a blood draw this year, her results were still far from the optimal T4 numbers; however not as bad as before treatment. she’d been on the meds for so long by then, it was rather discouraging and i started to fear she might not make it in the long run. not sure if it’s the vet who suggested it or if i did, but for the first time we ended up testing out methimazole pills instead of cream. results are more efficient that way cuz more direct when ingested through the system. i’d always discarded pills as a solution since i’ve never been good at forcing anything down cats’ throats—especially if 4 times a day with 2 cats, the horror! but here i’d been offered the perfect solution to try out: “pill assist”. basically a paste that tastes like a treat that you rub around the pill.
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| therefore, a few months ago began the pills saga. coconut was clearly the more stable one with the disease. i mean, his T4 levels remained like a yoyo throughout check-ups but just by looking at him you’d have no clue he was sick. i guess that’s why he turned out to be more of my guinea pig, in a way. pills twice a day for him which he always took like a true champ…one bite and almost no chewing!! soon afterwards i tested out with punky, first to see if she’d eat them at all cuz she’s more finicky. when she ate her first pill i was sooo thrilled cuz there was finally hope of achieving better results with her. i still had cream which i'd previously bought, however, so the vet suggested i’d go with a mix of cream/pills for her as long as we were at 10mg daily.
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| during my 2nd week of vacation in september, i'd made a vet appointment since i was almost out of pills for both cats. their annual health exams were coming up soon in october (which is required to order more pills), so it was sort of a win-win. i also thought it was perfect timing cuz coconut had been feeling more aloof lately, so a check-up couldn’t hurt.
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| these mobile vet visits are rather costly when you add annual check up + blood draw + cream and/or pills. because of this i ended up only having cococut checked up that day. besides, i still had like a month or so to get punky checked up and the vet agreed to sell me pills for her anyway. i ended up buying 2 pill bottles for punky + 1 for coconut (only 1 cuz i figured we might have to adjust the dosage upon getting the results from this latest blood draw). after what turned out to be $500+ visit, i was quite happy i could save some money delaying punky a bit.
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| vet called me the next day leaving a voicemail message. said i should call back to get the results. already this made me frown a little since he usually doesn’t mind leaving long messages on my answering machine to explain everything. but hey. i called the clinic and talked to him. straight up he said the numbers for coconut’s kidneys from the blood draw were concerning, or whatever he said. he asked if i wanted to get some extra tests done to investigate more on the issue…..for an approx extra $200. honestly, i was pretty maxed out at this point and declined. he understood and suggested i’d just keep an eye on coconut until his upcoming visit for punky. towards the end of the call, i inquired about the new thyroid/T4 numbers cuz i guess he’d almost forgot to say even though this was supposed to be the purpose of the call…??
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| well. the number we always hope for regarding healthy thyroid in cats is between 10-30. now i can’t exactly remember the number he told me, but it was around 30. we were there. WE WERE FINALLY THERE. although the possibility of chronic kidney disease was disheartening, the methimazole pills had brought him to the magic number. !!
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| now i must stop and say that throughout his life, coconut has had several issues with his bladder/kidneys. urinary blockages which brought him to the vet more than once (the office vet at the time as opposed to the mobile vet). so albeit this news was slightly disturbing, it wasn’t anything new. ya know? i supposed he’d been in remission for the last years, and now this might be coming back.
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| a week later, i called back the mobile vet office to speak with the receptionist who’s always so damn nice to me and acting like we’ve known each other forever. i was getting somewhat concerned cuz coconut now had a bit of the symptoms the vet had warned me linked to kidney disease (i.e.: eating less, sleeping more, drinking a lot more water). but the main concern behind my call wasn’t this at all. no, it’s just that coconut had started repetitively making strange mouth movements like something was bothered him either with his teeth and/or mouth. now i’m not too proud to say his teeth were awful as a senior cat *insert guilt* and inquiring about possible surgery. kidney disease totally took the backseat in my mind as this became my main concern. the receptionist listened and gave me her point of view, but ultimately said she’d speak with the vet for him to call me back with his opinion.
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| i remember putting the heating belt on my stomach that night (pretty sure i’ve been suffering from endometriosis for the last couple years but that’s a whole other story) and coconut climbing onto me as i worried the pad might be too hot for him. oh, and also thinking after a while; "go away, i'm in pain and you’re annoying!"
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| i ended up talking with the vet the next day, aka last friday. he was quite certain this particular symptom was not related to the poor state of his teeth but rather a direct to the kidney issue. the movement he was making with his mouth was most likely because he was feeling nauseous. he also mentioned that even though this was a chronic disease and the percentage lost on the kidneys could not be recovered, there were options to consider to get it all under control: food, etc. i felt relieved about upcoming solutions and honestly, that was that.
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| by the time saturday night rolled around, coconut was already a shell of himself. i think it’s when he refused to take his pill that something went truly off in my head. unlike all of the previous times he’d had bladder/kidney issues before, this was BAD. pretty sure the last time he ate a few licks of his pรขtรฉ was that evening. after that he was not purring anymore, barely reacting, sleeping almost all the time, and had to be held while puking cuz his body was too weak from not eating and giving out.
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| i spent my entire sunday worrying like a mad woman and waiting for the vet to open on monday. alongside him, i just couldn’t get myself to eat either. slept maybe 1 hour that night. called first thing in the morning for an emergency exam.
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| i don’t feel like writing and re-living all of what’s happened on monday. but for a quick recap: two different vet consultations (usual mobile vet + afterwards vet in clinic), another more comprehensive blood draw in clinic exhibiting more frightening results related to his kidneys. his body was full of toxins by that point, he was nauseous all the time and even smelled different. sure, i still had options before saying goodbye. but costly options with an approx rate of 40-50% positive results.
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| i wasn’t in the room to comfort him when they administered the final injection. I COULDN’T. i wish some day i’ll be able to forgive myself for this and/or stop crying when thinking about that very moment and most of all, that he can forgive me in his now cat-spirit state. i suppose it doesn’t help that i’d always pictured eventual home euthanasia's for my babies once the time came—less stressful for everyone but mostly the cat—and ultimately that’s not what ended up happening. cuz it all went down soooo fast. & now this last meows in the pet carrier might forever haunt me, great.
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| in the end i’ll never know whether it was kidney failure or kidney infection or whichever stage of chronic kidney disease he might have had. kidney related, sure, but what ultimately destroyed his kidneys? above all, i’ll never know how he got to this stage (not to mention so f*cking rapidly) and WHY. or maybe the hints were there all along...
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| i don't regret my decision of getting him euthanized at this point, so much as i regret the months leading up to his body shutting down. frankly i don’t even have the words.
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| for all pets i previously owned alongside my parents that passed already, there was a clear even if sometimes unpredictable cause which justified their death. yes, it hurts. a lot. but it doesn’t quite hit like also having to ponder if a given treatment which might’ve gone wrong.
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| hard to believe? just ask google IA instead;
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| "Yes, methimazole can be harmful to a cat with kidney issues, potentially causing kidney failure, so it should be used with extreme caution and close monitoring by a veterinarian. Methimazole treats hyperthyroidism by lowering thyroid hormone levels, which decreases blood flow to the kidneys; this can cause previously hidden kidney disease to worsen, potentially leading to acute kidney injury."
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| in other words, stabilizing his thyroid at a perfect 30 just might’ve put his weak kidneys into shock.
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| i knew about his antics of bladder/kidneys issues and still did NOTHING. i did not bother to research the effects of methimazole overtime, nor did the mobile vet inquire about the earlier part of coconut’s life while he probably should have. true, hyperthyroidism is deadly in cats if left untreated. but IMO kidneys are way more vital. cuz it's obvious you can live with a wonky thyroid, but kidneys? why am i only f*cking clicking NOW?!
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| only now that he’s dead do i go on reddit to find topics such as “RARE adverse reaction to methimazole in renal cat”.
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| gawd, how i wish this was all only grief.
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| i’m mad at the world and i’m mad at myself and mad at the vet for not stressing enough about the real dangers of methimazole for cat with a bladder/kidney weakness even though i still can’t 100% prove there’s a link (and probably never will).
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| also because i only relied on a mobile vet for my own comfort and convenience, coconut might have missed out on more accurate care for his specific condition which could only given in a clinic setting.
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| truth be told: methimazole likely saved punky whereas it easily might have killed coconut. saying i feel like utter sh!t is a understatement. for all i know he was fine with the cream until the pill switch which, even at the same dosage, was too effective?
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| f*ck. i feel as though i’ve given poisoned candy to a kid. over and over again, until the deed was done. not to mention paying a hefty price to do it. cuz maybe just maybe if i wouldn't have spent all this darn cash on these pills, he'd still be alive today. the motherf*ck!ng GUILT of not only possibly being the culprit of my own cat’s death (when i can’t even kill a stupid fly) and actually paying to do so, it's just....... UGHH.
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| i know he was 15 years old already and it's a fair age for a cat to reach. yet i can't help but feel i've been robbed of a few years with him.
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| & to think i’ve always been more worried about punky. *shakes head*
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| look. i know deep down i’m a good person. but a good a person who does her fair share of mistakes.
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| i can’t wrap my head around the fact that he was still completely fine while as i was painting my walls during my vacation mid-september, to end up dead not even a month after as i'm typing this.
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| i can’t help but think he’d be so thrilled these days as i’m bringing out the infrared radiators with the colder season fast approaching; guess i won’t be needing the metal fences to put around them so he won't come too close this year.
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| i'm not senile (yet) and i know he’s dead, but i keep strongly feeling as though i've moved houses and just left him behind all alone. but maybe that part will get better once his ashes have arrived back to me.
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| my existence feels so unbearable from the guilt i even miss his stupid puke on my living room carpet, aka his favorite place to puke when he was healthy.
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| the day after his passing on tuesday, the sky was crying, too.
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| it’s easier and easier as the days go by, they say. guess i’ll just have to see about that.
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