Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent
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My elderly cat passed away suddenly on Friday. It still hasn’t really hit me yet. Not fully. We didn’t know how sick he was until the very end, because he did an excellent job at hiding it, and it was only after he gone that we thought backward to noticing a lot of small little things that neither me nor my partner really noticed at the time.
He had been breathing really heavily for the last week, which made us take him to the vet on Friday. During that day, my partner calls me at work and tells me what’s going on is pretty bad. Fluid has been filling in his chest cavity and pressing on his lungs, which is what had been causing the labored breathing. X rays also showed some kind of large mass around his stomach/liver area, which is likely what was causing the fluid build up. The vet recommended we take Fuzz to the emergency ER across town, who could do a procedure that would tap the fluid and drain it, allowing him to breath, but with the understanding that it might give him a couple days to a couple weeks. He was 16 at this point, there was really no feasible way to even consider any kind of cancer treatment. And the vet was almost certain this was cancer.
My supervisor let me leave work, and saying it was my last day in the lab anyways, to just go and she’d be fine with calling it sick time(so long as I didn’t say why I was leaving) and met up with my partner. We were told to go home and come back in three hours or so to pick him up. So we waited, coming to terms that we were limited time with Fuzz at this point. What we would do when we brought him home, how we would take care of him, and most importantly, spend time with him. He was such a chill, patient, and tolerant cat. When we went to go get him, we figure we were just going to get him and take him home. Only to be told that the tap didn’t go well.
What were told that, if Fuzz had been a bit younger, his lungs may of been able to recover after the fluid was drained. But due to his age, it was really possible this lungs basically collapsed on themselves, preventing him from really breathing. They told us this much initially, apologized and told my partner that this was a risk of the procedure, but if we didn’t do anything, he was likely going to pass. So we thought there wasn’t much of a choice. Better to do something than nothing. Only it felt like doing something was the worst option. When they brought him in, and saw him gasping for air, that was about where I started to fall apart. They gave him a sedative to calm him down, to slow the gasping for air, and I knew at that point that we had to let him go. There was nothing for us to do.
Suddenly, I felt myself back in the room when my Old Man of 17 years passed away in Dec 2020. Same ER vet, same room, I was wearing the same fucking shoes. The same goddamn Yeezy 350s. We had to say goodbye right there, for a second time, after being told that we would be able to take our cat home, only to be then have the carpet yanked under our feet. It happened in Dec 2020 and now it’s happening again. And I just went back to the point, where it call came flooding back to me. And I just feel the fuck apart. And I couldn’t stop it. How could I? You can’t stop cancer, if we had taken him to the vet sooner, he could’ve passed faster. I try to think he didn’t suffer a lot. Even if I think of what I could’ve done differently. What I could have done. Or what I didn’t do. I know it’s not a thing to do, that I’ll just torment myself. Since I apparently torment myself on the daily already with my own depression.
So. Fuzz was gone, and another part of me gone with him. But it was 7pm at night. In February. We have a pet cemetery at my mom’s farm. A spot in the woods where a lot of the family pets are buried. I called my mom, who said we could do it tomorrow, let my step-dad hook up the post-hole digger to the backhoe. Farm equipment just to dig a three foot hole to bury a cat. Seemed like a lot but better than taking a shovel to frozen dirt. We go home, shattered.
Yesterday, I decided that we need to go to the gym. I need keep some semblance of good habits. See our trainer, talk to her. She knew what happened, and had already said she’d understand if we didn’t want to come in. After the gym, I get a message from my best woman from my wedding. A woman who I’ve known since I was 16. She calls me sobbing, which I found surprising since she is never one to cry. She apologized for asking me of this, especially since she knew about Fuzz, but she begged me to help her cat. Her cat, Nyanta, had surgery last week because he’s an idiot and somehow got in my friend’s yarn supply and had eaten far too much yarn. This required a $5k surgery to remove the yarn. At some point, his incision had opened and become infected, as puss was leaking from the wound. Fearing the worse, she called me, because the only ER vet was in my city. And she, is terrified of city driving due to a bad accident she was in some years ago.
So, instead of burying my cat like I had wanted to, put it behind me as best as I could, I said I would help. I couldn’t save Fuzz. He was already gone. But I could help my friend’s cat. What followed was a 50 minutes drive(one way, so this drive happened four times yesterday) in one direction. Get her, her cat, and her 1.5 year old son, drive them back up to my city, get them to the ER vet and proceed to wait for the next four hours at my apartment to get her cat, take them home, and then come back home. Exhausted, emotionally fragile and just wishing this weekend could actually be over, the realization in my head is, and still is, “I still have to bury Fuzz.” Called my mom, she said the hole had already been dug. That we’ll go to the vet to get Fuzz’s body, come down, and bury him.
We’re about to do that this morning. I just wanted to write all this down, get it down, get it into my state of mind. Trying to just get the emotional and mental energy to finish what should’ve happened 24 hours ago. I don’t regret helping my friend and her cat, and she felt terrible for even asking, but it’s only now, as I write this how exhausted I am. This has been an emotionally hard weekend, I think I’m ready to go back to work.
Please, go hug your pets.
Oh, and to put a topper on all of this, the wifi card in my desktop fried out. So that’s just the last thing that finally set me off. That’s appropos of nothing, just to note how much this weekend has sucked.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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Just… hug
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@Testament I’m so sorry. Losing a pet sucks. No matter what the circumstances, it fucking sucks.
You gave him a good life and you did right by him.
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@Testament I’m so sorry, man.
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@Testament Thank you for doing what you could to ease Fuzz’s suffering, and for being there at the end. I’m sorry it hurt so much to do.
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@Testament I’m so sorry. Remember to feel all your feels and they are very very very valid.
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Fucking people.
This made for a nice relaxing day.
Not.
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@Testament The lungs filling with fluid is what did my Fussy-cat in on April 1, 2022. I did the same procedure you did to give her a fighting chance, but also had to put her down on the same day, to do the humane thing. I feel for you and am so sorry for your loss. She’s in my daily routine to tell my dogs goodbye when I leave for work, telling her, my husband, and my dog who all passed that I love them all and miss them all very much.
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“assume positive intent” is so haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard sometimes
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@IoleRae said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:
“assume positive intent” is so haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard sometimes
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Struggling with significant depression rn. I’m doing ok juggling most things I think. But a bit slower on the uptake/not very much energy right now. At some point maybe I will be less burnt out by life, but man it is really hard. I know I have lots of people right here with me tho.
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@mietze you’re definitely not alone. I’m sorry for your struggle, for what it’s worth.
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Earlier this year they told us to start keeping every door shut and locked at all times. It is a pain in the ass but we have been doing it.
Seeing the Nashville shooter just go right through the locked doors just makes my heart ache and feel like every time I let a kid go to the bathroom it is a tiny bit like I’m sending them out with a 'good luck, don’t die. The fact that it was on the heels of a shooting here in Denver just doubles the feelings.
I’m not quitting teaching just… down.
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CW: bullshit animal laws, and threats of animal cruelty
We have been in the new house for about a week. A 90yr old waste of human DNA has already called the cops because our dogs were barking (during the day, we bring them in at night). It has escalated quickly.
|He threatened to hurt our dogs tonight because the cops told them there’s no ordinance against dogs barking during the day.So we called the cops back. And the cop told us that he’ll make sure the neighbor doesn’t come onto our property but we have to get rid of two of our dogs because there’s a city ordinance against pit bulls. We have a blue nose pit and a GSD/Pit that are bonded.
The ordinance requires that if they are outside they have a 4ft or shorter leashed and a muzzle. And cannot at any time be off leash. And they must be contained in such a way they can never get out on their own.
If we are caught violating the ordinance it is a 30 day sentence for the person deemed responsible. Which would be either my spouse or mother in law as they are legally the home owners.|
I really want to scream, but I have laryngitis on top of this so I’m not allowed to sing or talk loudly or anything…
Cobalt@Under the Stars
cob.alt@Discord
Cobalt#[email protected] -
The ACTUAL fuck.
I’m so sorry. -
Someone called in to a bunch of schools in northern Utah today and claimed that an active shooter was firing at students. It was a hoax.
I don’t fucking understand who could possibly do something like that. I am so angry about it I am literally shaking. My son was home from school today but even just the possibility of him being so scared and traumatized over some fuckhead’s sick prank is unbelievable.
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@Wizz Pennsylvania too. Rage.
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Now I’m sitting here wondering if school shootings are so common that school policies include how many snow days to cut from the calendar to make up for days lost to shootings and prank shooter alerts; and I’m getting very depressed as I think about it.
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@GF The answer is no, we don’t account for them.
Welcome to the club other states. So (sarcastic) glad to be a pioneer in gun violence in schools.
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Tfw pneumonia recovery might be hitting the stomach flu speedbump. fml
