Over time, though, he started to have increased difficulty with his breathing. His fur wasn't as shiny and his eating became fussier. He was sleeping inside more and we had to tweak his medication at times to deal with the fluid.
On Thursday he was especially having difficulty breathing all day. In the evening, whilst panting, he collapsed on the floor and was freezing cold. I lifted him up, took him into my room, and lay him on the bed whilst his heart was going a mile a minute. I spoke to him gently and stroked him to try to calm him down - this worked and he was able to fall asleep on my bed and sleep all night with me.
The next day, we took him to the vets. They took blood tests (which were fine) and kept him in overnight. They planned to remove the liquid from his lungs on Saturday.
On Saturday afternoon, I received a call from the vet saying that they had sedated him and found that he had fluid in both his lungs and abdomen. It would be too much to remove the fluid from both. He was suffering. He was cold and turning blue. I made the decision to let him go.
We rushed up to the vets and I held him and held his paw as the vet gave him the injection. I cried like a baby. I cried for every day from the past 13 years I've spent with him. I cried most of yesterday. I'm still crying.
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| Jelly as a kitten |
One of the more difficult things right now is realising how much he's been on my mind every day. Always thinking when I walk around the house "where's Jelly?" like I did when he was alive. Looking in rooms expecting to see him on the bed. Looking in the garden expecting to see him laying down snoozing. Walking up past the garden next door looking over the wall and thinking "is he hunting today?"
It's these thoughts that are going to be the most difficult for me. I know it was his time though. He was the greatest cat ever to have lived, so friendly to everyone, so fluffy, so good at hunting, so supportive of me. Maybe it's just the world's way of saying I'm strong enough now to face life without leaning on him. I suppose there are many ways of viewing it when someone (or something) dies. I know nothing about what happens after death. I know that my Jelly is gone. Maybe there's another world where he's still healthy and prancing around happily but that's just a way of comforting myself, I suppose, in thinking that he's not actually left us.
His passing has left a hole that can't be filled. 13 years is a long time to be spending most of my day with anything - animal or human. For him to suddenly not be there will be such a change in my life. I want to do what would have made him happy though. I want to keep going and not give up on life - he wouldn't have wanted me to.
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RIP Jellycat Adamson, 2007 - 2020. |