1 Name: EpicKeith !K31THxH0Es : 2024-02-12 00:29 ID:UTFJNxrn [Del]
For any pet owner, when your pet reaches an old age, any change in their health can cause panic.
We had Kookie for 16 years. We have no idea how old she was when we got her (she was a rescue, and was full grown already), so we don't know her exact age. At least 16 is all we know.
For her age, she seemed pretty healthy aside from her regular allergies and missing teeth. Although, because of her missing teeth, she started having a more difficult time eating dry food until she decided to stop eating it altogether. So we switched her to wet food, which she ate. Until my dad accidentally bought the wrong kind and she refused to eat it. Which meant she didn't eat. And lost weight. She also got a cold around the same time, which certainly didn't help.
While she had her cold, we kept her locked in the bathroom with a humidifier so she could breathe easier. We also gave her water with electrolytes to help her recover, so being locked up made it so the other cats couldn't steal her water.
While she was recovering from her cold, my siblings and I noticed she didn't like the new wet food. So we would bring her the cans of the old kind that we still had. Our mother, however, even after telling her she didn't like them, kept bringing her the new ones. So she wasn't regaining weight very well.
She was still doing well though! She was acting her usual self and eating and drinking and even playing! This made me feel relieved since we had a scare a year ago where she had an illness that made her very weak and unlike herself. Luckily, she recovered well. And I was convinced that if we could find more food that she liked, she would regain her weight and recover well again!
My mother, however, was not so optimistic. In fact, she believed full heartedly that Kookie was actively dying. She would claim that she wasn't eating, drinking, moving, or using the bathroom. Which was... simply not true. Everytime I went in the bathroom to check on Kookie, I could get her to eat and drink. And I would let her out sometimes because she HATED being locked up in there (she's a social kitty) and she would roam the entire house. And I cleaned her litter box regularly. Definitely used, and since she was the only one with access to it, it was her using it. So basically...everything my mom claimed was the opposite of reality.
On the 9th, Kookie had a vet appointment. I assumed she was being brought in to check on her health and maybe get advice on what to try to feed her so she could regain weight. I had work, so I wasn't able to go. However, when I came home, I learned the truth.
My mother brought her in for the sole purpose of getting euthanized. No checkup at all. She told the vet her delusional reasons for putting her down. And now... Kookie is gone.
I want to scream. I want to be so mad at my mother for taking Kookie away when she was still so full of life. It was NOT her time to go. Nobody else in my family thought Kookie's health was bad, nobody else knew that day would be Kookie's last. I want to be sad. I want to be heartbroken. Kookie has been a part of our family for so long and now we have to be without her.
But instead of feeling these emotions... I feel so empty. I don't feel anything at all. Maybe I'm subconsciously holding myself together for my job? (I work directly with customers and have to appear friendly at all times) Maybe I'm not ready to accept reality? I don't know. I really just. don't know.
All I know is that she should still be here, purring away like she always does. But she's not here anymore. And she never will be again.
