I'm having a very hard time dealing with the fact that my cat spent the last week of his life in the vet hospital.
He was a rescue cat when I got him from a rescue group a little over nine years ago. He'd been saved from the streets. I can't help but think, that last week, he must have wondered where his home went? The vet hospital was good about letting me visit him - two to four hours each day (I would go after work and a couple of times he and I even napped together, like at home) - but it just breaks my heart that he might have thought he was without a home again when he died.
I'd had a long talk with his oncology vet the day before, explaining how important it was to me that if he was going to die, he die at home. The night he died I'd actually gone to pick him up and bring him home -- they thought he was doing a little better, even though his prognosis was bad -- and I was so happy he'd get to come home again. Then he started dying when I got there so I never got to bring him home.
If I'd known he was never coming home again, I wouldn't have taken him in the first place. I live in a big city and there are vets here who'll do house calls. His regular vet is one block away so he was going to go back under his care and be euthanized at home when/if it came to that.
I feel like I let him down in the most important way.
He was a rescue cat when I got him from a rescue group a little over nine years ago. He'd been saved from the streets. I can't help but think, that last week, he must have wondered where his home went? The vet hospital was good about letting me visit him - two to four hours each day (I would go after work and a couple of times he and I even napped together, like at home) - but it just breaks my heart that he might have thought he was without a home again when he died.
I'd had a long talk with his oncology vet the day before, explaining how important it was to me that if he was going to die, he die at home. The night he died I'd actually gone to pick him up and bring him home -- they thought he was doing a little better, even though his prognosis was bad -- and I was so happy he'd get to come home again. Then he started dying when I got there so I never got to bring him home.
If I'd known he was never coming home again, I wouldn't have taken him in the first place. I live in a big city and there are vets here who'll do house calls. His regular vet is one block away so he was going to go back under his care and be euthanized at home when/if it came to that.
I feel like I let him down in the most important way.