Saki is gone

[lavendertook]

My baby is dead.



Her breathing continued very labored this evening and didn't settle out again after a while as it had been doing all weekend--it had been labored earlier in the evening but it got better for a while as she laid her chin on my hand, but then it got bad again and she just couldn't get comfortable and kept fleeing, so I put her in her crate, and took her to the emergency clinic. She touched my fingers through the grate a few times in a frantic way and I talked and sang to her, but on our way there about 11 pm I heard her breathing stop suddenly, and knew she was gone. They pronounced her dead at the clinic. I petted her empty body and left her with them to have her cremated and her ashes will be sprinkled along with other pets at an orchard in Pennsylvania. claudia603, I sent her wrapped in the wool blankie you made her that she loved to sit on.

Maybe if I didn't hesitate and left earlier, she could have been saved, but it was just as likely she could have been poked and prodded, and then died alone in a cage kept all night under observation. I hesitated because of that, because I didn't know if being seen by a vet who didn't know her would help, and that her symptoms weren't different than the vet tech saw yesterday at our vets when Saki choked up before she gave her the sub cut fluids, and I didn't want to put her through more poking and perhaps being left for overnight observation in a strange metal place alone that might not have been able to help anyway, and she had been so up and down this weekend, though the downs were getting longer, and I was hoping she could hold out to be seen by her doctor tomorrow to know if the throat stitches could come out.

I hate that she suffered a lot this weekend, but she also purred some and I brushed her a lot and we cuddled this morning and I am so glad I slept on the futon next to her the last 2 nights, and I stroked her as she rested her head in my hand this evening. Maybe it was not worse than dying unconscious in surgery or being peacefully euthanized. Like the cats I had euthanized, Gabby and Milli, she told me it was time, and for them it was right and peaceful as I held them--but Saki, it IS like her forceful self to leave on her own terms and not wait to be euthanized. And we were still together at the end.

But my heart is so broken. She is so wrapped around it. 17 is a ripe age, and for the last few years, I feared losing her many times and at those times did not expect her to get this far--every day was a gift, but I so wanted her to be here healthy and happy longer still. Still, I was treating all last week like my possible last week with her with knots in my stomach all week--I knew what surgery can mean. But I also knew what a big ass fast-growing tumor could do as well, so we had to try. Oh, my clever, loving, empathetic, determined, and adorable little girl, bringer of the extreme cute, I miss you so so so much. I am going to miss all the wonderful things you did and were. She was truly an amazing being.

Tuxie is beside me. I don't know when he will realize she is gone for good or how it will be for him--he adored her.

No more Sakiness. How can there be no more Saki? My world is immensely shrunken.


Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/182735.html with comments

Comments

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

we all do that: wish for just one more moment, think that there surely must have been something we did (or missed doing) that could have assured that moment.

At the end of the day, we are only beating ourselves up for no good reason. You did the very best you could for someone you love. That is all any of us can do.

Remember Frodo, who thought he failed? He never did. And neither, my friend, did you. We all could be better, braver, stronger, etc. etc....and etc.

But that is not what is required. What is required is that we, with true hearts, try our hardest. That is what you did. And your Saki knew that. She rested her soul as readily as her head in your protection.

I can't tell you not to grieve. You should. But please don't twine it with guilt, for that should not be your burden.

Be at peace. Saki would wish it so.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Thank you, bb, for saying everything. *hugs*

I think the military tribunal in my head is done torturing me now and the Congressional review has filed its report--it's just big gobs of missing her now and wishing she had been free of suffering, but no mortal is--I just wish she were still here.

I don't know if Tuxie is mourning, but he is missing her and has been looking at her places and I think perhaps confused by her being gone, and is by my side, and I am grateful to share comfort with him.

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

Ah, those grand tribunals, how they do drum on and on.

I'm not sure what sort of emotive abilities any animals have. I think we 'assign' emotions to them because we see them acting/reacting in ways that we would. At the end of the day, though, there is Tuxie, comforting you with his presence and his Saki-awareness, and there are you, wrapping a mother's arms around an orphan.

It's how it should be, no matter what the reason.

May your heart find peace.

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

They vary between individuals, like they do with people. Cats and dogs, with their differing social needs are not very far from us in genetic sequencing. And human language is very limited in revealing more to us of what is really inside another human and how their emotional life matches up to what we assign each other in our own projections of who the other is. I know of two siameses I grew up with, Turie mourned terribly when her brother Yodi died, spent her time sitting in all his spots, and followed him 3 months later.

Tuxie is cuddling a little more with me on and off, so I think he is seeking the contact he's lost with his occasional comfort seeking with Saki, and it is a little bit of comfort for me when he seeks it. I am keeping an eye on him.

No, I have ended the tribunal. I couldn't risk Saki having a sad slow decline when the surgery could have prevented that and given her more better time. it failed, but we did our best, and it at least prevented the slow wasting away in growing pain. We wrung all the love we could out of the time we had together and I worked very hard to get us there the last 3 years. And that will be a comfort in time. Now it's just the awful ache of missing my Saki joy.

Thank you. And for being here and comforting me.

[jan-u-wine.livejournal.com]

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((LT))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

*hugs you back*