A Goodbye To My Cat Marshmallow Fluff
Last night I had to rush my cat Marshmallow Fluff to the animal ER. She wasn't doing too well. She had to be put down unfortunately. She was having trouble breathing and was uncomfortable. They found a buildup of fluid in her lungs and abdomen. The vet thinks that it was heart failure from the end stage renal disease, but she also is thinking it could have been a return of lung cancer that she had removed almost 10 years ago. The only option really was just to put her down. She was really struggling just to catch her breath.
She'd been kind of so so for about the last week, and then this weekend she just really wasn't doing all that great... She did manage to eat and drink on Saturday and early Sunday. After I arrived home though from the 8K run I was in, she only ate a small amount for dinner around 6. Then around 8 she was really just not seeming to be doing too great. I already had a vet appointment scheduled for today at 10:30 so I was just trying to get her to eat and drink a little bit and had planned to just spend the night by her side and get her to the vet today at 10:30 in the morning. After about two hours, around 10pm last night she started coughing and was having trouble breathing. So I called the emergency vet ER and they told me to bring her in. She kind of went back to a semi normal breathing after about 15 minutes of having some pretty major trouble but you could hear that she was straining to breath. It was definitely taking effort for her to take each breath.
They did a ultrasound on her as soon as I arrived and found the fluid. The vet at the animal hospital just really told me right away that she was in pretty serious trouble, we could have tried to drain the fluid but it was only a temporary solution because the underlying fluid issue was most likely due to her renal failure progressing or cancer and all of that causing heart failure... And given that she was 15 years old it just wasn't going to be a likely successful outcome to treat her and do tests, and to do all of that while she was very uncomfortable. The vet urged me to just decide to take the option to let her finally rest.
I reluctantly agreed, I've just been super sad all day. Today the primary vet called me to offer her condolences and say that given her history and such she definitely thinks it was time and that I did the right thing. She thinks that even if we had tried to treat Fluff, it still would have only been days, or maybe weeks given the fluid build up. Fluid build up is a very serious condition and generally indicates something really serious is going on.
Today I've just been looking back through some pictures and a couple of videos I have of her. She was a good cat. Fluff, or fluffernutter as my mom called her, or sometimes yow yow since her sister was ying ying.... It was because of the way she meowed that sounded almost like she was saying words. She had a super funny purr, since she was missing half a lung it would be very loud and deep and longer than a normal purr. She was just a cute cat. She'd wake me up each morning by pawing at my face... She'd run around the house and hide when she needed to go into her cage to go to the vet...
That's how I knew that something was wrong, she didn't even fight going into the cage, she was just soo wobbly and sleepy. It was just her time to go I guess.
I miss her a lot though, I keep expecting to see her around the corner or in one of her normal spots around the house. But she's in a better place now and no longer suffering... Yesterday was just terrible, she just was struggling so hard to keep going, especially last night at the vet just trying to show that she wasn't ready to go and keep breathing, but you could just tell from the fluid in her lungs that it was hard for her. She just wanted to sleep. And now she's finally at rest.
She seemed to be very at peace once they gave her the medication to sedate her and then finally the rest of the meds that would stop her heart. Before that moment she really just was trying hard just to breath.... I felt bad keeping her in my arms. I did sit with her for about 5 minutes alone before the end, she purred a little bit as I pet her but it only lasted about 30 seconds and then she went back to just trying to keep up with her breath.
Anyway, I got to say goodbye to her and I spent a lot of the weekend with her as well, I spent most of the week tending to her getting her to eat, so I spent a lot of time with her in the last week. She was a good cat and had a good life, she was 15, so she definitely had her fair share of lap time and pet time and all that. Now she's at peace and with my mom and as well her sister who passed about 2 years ago. I still have 2 more of my mom's cats to keep me company. So, I'll just be spending a little more quality time with those two from now on.
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