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My sweet precious boy...this beautiful creature that has been keeping me going through the last couple years of divorce, loss of my dog, loss of both of my parents.

I took him in this morning because he didn't seem to be feeling well the last couple of days...not eating as much, noticed he seemed a little thinner yesterday, a little more lethargic.

His kidney values are literally off the charts. Creatine, bun...basically kidney failure. He's 8. No where was this possibility on my radar...that I might not only have another loss but that it would be the one thing that is keeping me going.

As strange as it might sound, this feels like it is the straw that might very well break me. We won't know more until Monday, until the next test after a weekend getting fluids, antibiotics, etc. The vet is trying to be cautiously optimistic. I should have hope. I should at least feel like I can...what, pray maybe?

I have no hope. I feel utterly defeated. Broken. Just. fucking. broken.I cannot handle one more prospect of any grief. Hope just feels like a cruel joke. God hasn't been taking my phone call for the last few years.

I don't want to do this anymore. Life has stopped having any element of joy. It just feels like one more kick in the face after another. He has been the last hope and joy that I have been literally clinging to these last couple of years. Every dark night I have had, he has been there...and at the dawn after every one of those dark moments, he is what I have turned to and been grateful to have...the bright spot..the thing that renewed my belief in the basic goodness of life.

If he is gone, I am done. If I lose him, I'm telling the world - that's it. I give up. You will have taken my last reserve.

I can't kill myself. You don't have to shame me, remind me that I have other duties. But I need to acknowledge that I will WANT to die. It will strip me down to bare bones. Not just to go on without my cat, but to finally have to just acknowledge that this world is cruel - even exceptionally cruel. And I'm done trying to believe otherwise. I'm done looking for silver linings, pulling myself up by boot straps, looking for some benevolent God.

I cannot believe we are even here. When the last thing I feel I am holding onto is coming from a cat...and I can't even have that? You can't even let that be? This will break me into a zillion pieces...and I will never be ok again.

Fuck you Life. Just fuck you.

So sorry

I am so sorry hun. Sending you positive thoughts and healing mojo for your precious boy. Also sending you big hugs. We are here for you. (((Truth)))

So sorry about your sweet kitty. My older cat had a thyroid condition that caused him to have really high kidney values. We put him on thyroid medicine & he did well for a few more years. He wouldn't take the pills, but they have a form that absorbs through the skin - you rub it inside the ear.

I hope they find out that it's something treatable.

Please don't give up! CATS have a way of bouncing back. It sounds like he's getting great treatment. Having said that, I know what your are feeling. Two years ago when I lost my Golden Retrieve, age 15, I really didn't see how I'd go on without him.

I wish you and Mr. Kitty luck. Please let us know. We are definitely a bunch of animal lovers on this site.

TSMF, I completely understand — my 8 year old cat went through something similar and she was all i had left after a bunch fo traumas including the A and D. And I did end up back in therapy because of it— and I am here one year later to tell you it gets better. You can survive this. Trust.

It hurts so much when our pets are sick, and we have poured so much love in to them.

Sending your kitty healing mojo and sending you hugs.

[This message edited by BearlyBreathing at 3:35 PM, November 6th, 2020 (Friday)]

The day my mom died...which was also TOTALLY unexpected...I had taken Theo in for a tooth cleaning and due to his breed, I was so anxious about having him put under anesthesia. We had talked several times throughout the day because she was also worried with me.

We talked later that day, after he was out of anesthesia, and both so relieved. I had had such a bad feeling that day that I couldn’t shake - so I was literally in tears with relief. I had no idea that I would receive a call just three hours later that she had died. WTEF?

Y’all. I really really can’t do this. He has been the vessel that has held so much of this grief. He just somehow made it better.

I can’t do this. This somehow has to be ok. I just can’t do it. I can’t pull myself back from this. I need some time to just be able to get over ONE of them. It’s genuinely reached the point of just being too much.

Even DS26 is crying just simply because of the heaviness of all of these events on me. I can even hear the depth of this particular concern in his voice.

I remember the day after I found out about H's 1st affair in 2007, I had to take our miniature schnauzer to the vet as something was off. I remember falling apart in front of the vet, saying, "You can't let anything happen to her, she's all I have right now." I couldn't believe I fell apart like that. Ends up, whatever was wrong, it was treatable, and we had more years with her.

In 2011, I began an almost two-year battle with debilitating anxiety and depression; I did a residential treatment program about nine months in, and rallied for a few weeks, long enough to feel like the time was finally right to get another dog. But within weeks of getting him, my depression became unbearable. For several months, until I went into the hospital (I was having serious suicidal ideations), this dog was the only thing that got me up off of the couch... to let him in and out to go potty. And I resented him so much for it, and even thought about returning him to the breeder. While I was in the hospital, I ended up getting ECT, and it totally pulled me out of my depression and anxiety. When I came home, I finally was able to bond with this dog in a way I had previously been capable of. And when I look back, sometimes I think getting him might have kept me alive; he might have just saved my life until I was able to get the help I really needed.

So I get how attached we get to our pets, and how devastating it is to consider their being ill or dying. I remember when I found out about affairs #2-4, I again looked at our dog as the one thing that kept me going; I had to walk him when H was out of the house for over a week and a half and didn't know if I'd be letting H back home.

Of course, I was never dealing with the crisis of a pandemic, or our country's upheaval as we are now on top of it. But it is hard when we really do depend on our pets to be there for us and can't imagine life without them when a crisis occurs.

In 2013 my sweet girl was diagnosed with kidney failure. We started IM fluids, switched her food, kept vigilant for infection and treated it aggressively. She lived, happily albeit with some cat dementia (she was 15ish) She finally let me know it was her time in 2017.

She had ups and downs, terrible lab results and great numbers. I found an amazing resource, Google "Tanya's resource guide to Feline CRF." Best advice overall, "treat the cat, not the numbers."

It was an expensive journey but my vet let me pay bit by bit.

Hugs. PM me if you want.

Please, please don't give up hope. Your vet is cautiously optimistic, you wrote.

Your sweet, precious boy will always be your sweet, precious boy, forever in your heart.

I am crying as I type this because I know how you feel. I may have been on the other side of infidelity, but that didn't mean that I didn't need comfort. My sweet boy was constantly with me; he was always on my lap during the day and snuggled in with me at night. He was my anchor! Even my H and our sons knew how devastated I was going to be when my sweet boy's time was up: June 20, 2017. I had Smudge for 14 years and I will never, ever have another cat like him. I treasure my memories. But please don't give up. Please. You may have more time with your sweet, precious boy; or you may not. Life throws so many arrows that strike our hearts. You can get through this. There is hope.

Please know that I am thinking of you and praying for your cat.

Just an update. A good one I think...but I'm also still really scared...I guess even afraid to hope.

Theo's creatine and bun numbers have come down to half of what they were yesterday. They're still in the high range but the vet seemed very encouraged. She's been optimistic throughout this...but I sense is still very guarded. (She told me yesterday evening that she expects "many more years from Theo".) It's just hard to tell what the guarded piece still is - other than the obvious. Basically, I just don't know how to read her...and I'm sure some of my own deep fears are cluttering the interactions.

He also "scarfed down" almost a whole can of cat food last night and did the same this morning. He has not entirely stopped eating at any point through this process...but he also NEVER "scarfs down" food. This much I CAN read from the vet - she is very humored by his eating, laughs when she talks about it. She stated this morning that he eats like he is a starving cat.

He has to move this morning to the 24 hr vet since her office is not open on the weekends. I'm actually ok with this...I just dread having to move him. I want to see him...but it's going to be really hard to drop him off at a new location and even harder to see him without being able to bring him home. I have a lot of anxiety about this. He didn't really present yesterday as a sick cat so I won't even have the benefit of maybe actually seeing that he feels better. At least the IV and catheter won't have to come out and be reinserted at the new location. The vet also stated that he was very cold this morning when they came in (he's hairless)...so I will feel better about him being in an environment where they can make sure he stays covered 24/7. In that regards the move will be a positive.

Tilly is anxious. Either that or she's just happy to have full claim to the now empty spot on my lap. That part is hard too. I love her. I want to comfort her...it's just not the right cat in the right spot and I distinctly feel that. They look a lot a like so when she first comes to me, I instinctively think it's Theo. It's a hard jolt each time which makes me both angry and sad. And then guilty.

I feel relieved...and then just scared again. Scared of getting my hopes up...scared of what this will look like afterwards....scared of going through all of this all over again. My dog had kidney failure in 2018. It was a long, hard, and grief-filled journey to the end...and that experience certainly is affecting my thought-processes now. I probably fought much longer than I should have with him - 2x/day sub-q by the end. That's almost the hardest part...not when you feel like you can't do anything but sometimes when you think you CAN. We both suffered tremendously.

Thank you for the responses. I wish I could say that my anxiety and grief has also been reduced by half. I want to hope...only if because it makes today a little better. I also want to hope because I think it changes the energy around all of this - and I do believe in the role that plays. I feel like I have enough good news today to maybe birth some hope...to get some positive mojo moving around this. I'm just still hitting the wall in that area and I don't completely understand why that's a hold-out.

I'm so sorry. I unexpectedly lost my 10yo cat because we found out he was diabetic when he went into ketoacidosis. It was heartbreaking. I miss him so much.

No words, just a virtual hug.

(((TSMF)))

Sounds positive today. That's fantastic keeping the healing mojo and prayers headed your way.

Update 2

Theo’s values are down to the normal range this morning!!!

They’re thinking this may have been an acute issue related to the UTI vs chronic. He continues to be eating exceptionally well and will hopefully be able to come home tomorrow. We’ll just have to watch now to make sure he clears the infection and to determine how well his kidneys recover to make sure we don’t now go into a chronic issue.

Thank you for all the healing energy!!! Thank you for being with me through this...for all the understanding and support why I was so devastated. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

What an awesome report! UTIs are nasty things, even for humans. I'm so glad kitty is better.

Great news!!!!!!

>^..^<. Hurray!!! So happy to read this!!

So happy to hear the great news.

My DDs cat kept getting UTIs come to find out there is something in the lightweight litter that was causing it. Maybe finer dust that could find its way in. I don't know but when she went back to the clumping stuff it has not happened again.

Fantastic news!!!!

May Theo be with you, and healthy, for years to come!