Saying goodbye

It’s time to finally say goodbye.

Werner, pet death

He’s still happy to get food, but he’s having trouble even getting over to the food dish, or eating treats. When I sit on the couch he almost invariably falls down while trying to jump up to join me. His breathing’s become labored, and he refuses to be bathed by Fiona. And he meows at me in a way unlike he has before, where he’s clearly trying to ask me to do something, to tell me something’s wrong, but he doesn’t know what.

He’s clearly in pain and just doing a really good job of hiding it. But not even that good of a job. And his downslide over the past few days has been severe.

I contacted an in-home euthanasia vet and they were able to schedule him for Friday at Noon. It wasn’t optimal timing as I had a thing scheduled for then, but I was able to reschedule that.

Meanwhile I’m giving him lots of CBD oil and he’s just like… staring at space, and occasionally hobbling to one of his napping spots with great difficulty.

I keep on thinking about things I could do to make him get better but they’d only be temporary fixes, and he’d be unlikely to survive any of them anyway, and it’s time to let go. Part of me feels happy that he’ll be able to have a beautiful death without pain or anguish, I’m sad to be losing my friend.

When it comes down to it, he hasn’t really been “here” since June, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to say goodbye.

I just hope he doesn’t get too much worse in the next two days.

ETA: I’ve been perusing photos and videos of him, to remember happier, better times. And it’s amazing how quickly he went downhill. Even as recently as April he was still playful, cuddly, and healthy, and I distinctly remember that moving to White Center had given him a second wind. But by June he was having the onset of liver problems, and taking him to the vet bought him two more months but those months have been very painful to watch. I’m grateful for all the time I’ve had with him but I wish there’s something I could have done, all the same.

ETA2: On the other hand I knew this day was coming for a while. It’s just that his decline had been pretty slow until June.

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