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rowynBranl is dying.
It may be days or weeks or months, but I don't expect her to live another year. Not the way she's going.
I took her to the vet the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because she'd started losing weight again, and had no energy. She'd just lie whereever she happened to be, looking dead. The vet looked her over, said she didn't have an infection or other visible llness. "She's old, and her body's shutting down. I can do bloodwork, and other stuff, to confirm it, but it's likely to be expensive and not do her any good." I told him not to do it. I don't know if that was the right choice or not.
He gave me a tube so I could force-feed her and told me to give her brewer's yeast tablets as a nutritional supplement. I bought some, but I can't find them since the move. I'll go get more tonight, I guess.
She's been terrible since last night. She hardly moves at all, just lays in the little house of the cat furniture, or inside the litterbox. She seems to have decided the litterbox is a good place to sleep. When she does move, she's so stiff. She can hardly clamber in and out of the litterbox anymore. She won't use it to relieve herself; she uses the floor instead.
Not that it much matters, since she's eating and drinking so little that there's hardly anything going through her.
It seems so sudden. Just a month ago she was still moving fairly well, and reasonably active. Not a healthy young cat, but when I put food down in front of her she'd eat some of it.
And now she's dying. Last night, she gagged every time I tried to force some food into her. This morning, she wanted to eat and couldn't. She choked on it. On canned cat food mush. I mixed it with water into cat food soup and she lapped up some of it. I forced more into her. Maybe a tablespoon, in all.
I don't know how long she can live like this. She doesn't seem unhappy. Or happy, either. She just is. She'll lie in my lap if I put her there, but she doesn't purr anymore.
I don't know why I'm writing this down, except that I thought perhaps I should. She's maybe sixteen years old. No one knows for sure. I got her six and a half years ago, as an adult cat, and the vet guessed back then that she was ten. She's an old cat. Living things get old, and then they die. Just seems to be the way it goes.
I wonder if she'll still be alive when I get home?
It may be days or weeks or months, but I don't expect her to live another year. Not the way she's going.
I took her to the vet the Saturday before Thanksgiving, because she'd started losing weight again, and had no energy. She'd just lie whereever she happened to be, looking dead. The vet looked her over, said she didn't have an infection or other visible llness. "She's old, and her body's shutting down. I can do bloodwork, and other stuff, to confirm it, but it's likely to be expensive and not do her any good." I told him not to do it. I don't know if that was the right choice or not.
He gave me a tube so I could force-feed her and told me to give her brewer's yeast tablets as a nutritional supplement. I bought some, but I can't find them since the move. I'll go get more tonight, I guess.
She's been terrible since last night. She hardly moves at all, just lays in the little house of the cat furniture, or inside the litterbox. She seems to have decided the litterbox is a good place to sleep. When she does move, she's so stiff. She can hardly clamber in and out of the litterbox anymore. She won't use it to relieve herself; she uses the floor instead.
Not that it much matters, since she's eating and drinking so little that there's hardly anything going through her.
It seems so sudden. Just a month ago she was still moving fairly well, and reasonably active. Not a healthy young cat, but when I put food down in front of her she'd eat some of it.
And now she's dying. Last night, she gagged every time I tried to force some food into her. This morning, she wanted to eat and couldn't. She choked on it. On canned cat food mush. I mixed it with water into cat food soup and she lapped up some of it. I forced more into her. Maybe a tablespoon, in all.
I don't know how long she can live like this. She doesn't seem unhappy. Or happy, either. She just is. She'll lie in my lap if I put her there, but she doesn't purr anymore.
I don't know why I'm writing this down, except that I thought perhaps I should. She's maybe sixteen years old. No one knows for sure. I got her six and a half years ago, as an adult cat, and the vet guessed back then that she was ten. She's an old cat. Living things get old, and then they die. Just seems to be the way it goes.
I wonder if she'll still be alive when I get home?
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-01 12:56 pm (UTC)I wish I could do more than tell you what you already know... that Branl is venerable by cat standards, and that they reach ages like that by enjoying lives well-cared for by a loving owner. She never wanted anything else. I don't understand much about the way the universe works, or greater powers, but I think that having helped a life along its course can only be a good thing.
So.. yeah. Um.. *hug*