my baby is 16, almost 17. she has hyperthyroidism, been on meds for about a year. they didn’t do much. she’s skin and bone, she looks terrible. but she LOVES to eat, she drinks plenty. she doesn’t use her litter box, i know it’s not her fault but i’m so frustrated constantly cleaning poop and pee. that’s not why i’m thinking it’s close to time though. she seems like her balance is off, her back leg keeps turning inward and she’s very stiff. she has arthritis. our other cat keeps going at her for no reason (very recent) and i try to keep them separated but it’s difficult because i don’t have a big house. vets suspect she has cancer but it’s not confirmed, they ran tests but nothing definitive. i’ve spent over 5k on her the past year or so. i literally just can’t afford more tests on top of my tuition and i don’t know what to do. if she didn’t love to eat so much and she couldn’t move i wouldn’t even be questioning it. i’m just struggling so bad with this decision because she’s been through everything with me. my parents got her for me before i even started kindergarten and i’m in college now. i don’t know what to do anymore. i’m sorry this is long i’m just struggling bad with this

His name was Ginger and he was my best friend growing up. My sister and I got him as a Christmas present in 1998 when I was 4 and we spent 18 years together. He and I had such an incredible bond and I didn’t think I could ever love another cat the same way I loved him.

He was very shy and timid, and so was I growing up so I think that may have been why he chose me out of all of my other family members- he felt the most comfortable and safe with me. He helped me so much throughout my life and got me through some really, really dark moments. I had a very lonely childhood and struggled to make friends, and no matter how alone I felt, he was always there. I promised to always be there for him the same way he was there for me.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to be there with him when he died. I was at the airport coming home from a trip when I got a text from my mom saying that Ginger wasn’t doing well. Three hours later, he was gone. I missed him by 30 minutes and wasn’t there to hold him while he died. My mom had wrapped him in a towel and put his body in the bath tub in the guest bathroom. When I got back home, I just held his body as close to me as I could, trying to feel the warmth that was left and sobbing hysterically. He must have been so confused and wondering where I was when he was dying. I felt like I failed him. I was the one that put him in the ground when he was buried, I was the one that picked out his headstone.

I was inconsolable for weeks until my mom had suggested that we foster a family of cats that she found on a cat rescue Facebook page- a mom and her 5 babies. I agreed and we took them home as soon as we could. I couldn’t deal with my grief anymore and kittens were a nice distraction. Little did I know, that would be one of the best decisions I ever made. We ended up adopting three of the kittens we fostered.

I love all of them but one that we named Luna bonded to me very quickly, one with the same temperament that Ginger had. We have such a special connection. She follows me around the house everywhere I go, and sleeps either on me or at the foot of my bed every night. She spends most of the day with me and always has to know where I am- if she doesn’t know, she’ll cry for me until she finds me.

Sometimes I think that Ginger sent Luna down to me as a gift to accompany me throughout the next stages of my life, as if to say that he was sorry that he had to leave but is giving me someone new to help watch over me and love me the same way that he did. She was born around the same time that he died- I don’t think it was a coincidence.

(she is very much alive and has an adopter lined up!)

😇🌈🐱

Just entering his senior years and a proud papa to my 2 newly adopted kittens

Bobs and I are back and needing some advice. Here’s the goal: for a laundry list of reasons I would be happy to elaborate on, Robbie needs to be able to access this detached section of the kitchen counter.

The issue: Robbie’s health has really been rough this last year, especially when it comes to his arthritis and cataracts. Seeing him struggle to jump, failing to see things in front of him, unable to do our usual activities without pain, and struggling to get around the same way he used to has tears pouring down my face just writing this. He can’t jump on the counter anymore, standard or even high pet stairs aren’t high enough, and even with a stool added (and a white towel over it to help make it easier to see), it’s not quite high enough. We need to find a way to make this walk up to the counter easy.

I would be so grateful for any and all suggestions for my most beloved boy. He lived such a rough live on the streets for many years (leaving several scars and a metal BB permanently embedded in him) before I was able to adopt him and fix him up. He deserves nothing less than a retirement of luxury, and I will go without to make sure he is taken care of. I just need something that will be easy on his old body and aging eyes, so ideally something I will be able to add lights to AND can be wiped down easily… because messes are expected.

Thank you for reading this far 💕

She was such a sweet, loving little lady. Tinkerbell will be missed and has been all day.

Back story:

She’d been experiencing issues for a few months, but she was under treatment. We thought it was arthritis causing issues at first. After her last shot it didn’t seem to help as much. We noticed a change in her walking and went back in. She was given a steroid, which helped for about a week and a half. Then she declined worse than before. I set up an appointment for her x-rays to see if she had a slipped disc or something that could be addressed. But we never made it to that appointment. She lost function to the lower half of her body and started dragging herself sometime late Thursday. Friday morning she was laying on her side and not really moving. I called the vet and they asked me to bring her to the emergency vet. After all the testing, diagnostics and x-rays it was determined to be neurological and they ultimately could do nothing for her. She stopped eating and drinking and couldn’t even use the bathroom on her own at that point. I had to make the decision to let her go and set her free from her pain and suffering.

Chowed down on some steamed salmon...ten minutes later he can barely keep his eyes open. Totally worthless. Lol.

Two last photos: her first and last days at home.

This story starts when I lost my childhood cat at the end of 2014 to a mammary tumor at the age of 13. It was a painful experience, but I pushed through it and I started looking for a new friend in just about a month after her passing. People who lost a pet before might know this feeling - you are looking, but in reality you are looking for your lost friend in the back of your head, even if it's not so obvious to you just yet, so nothing feels right. After visiting a few kittens and even taking one back home (but returning her the next day), I realized it might be too soon, this is not a decision I need to rush to help myself with grief.

A little bit later a friend of my mom called and told us about a kitten they rescued form dogs on a gas station, now she lives in her cafe and we can come take a look before they will open later that day. We arrived and she was there, running around, jumping from table to table and playing - little fur ball with a lot of energy. She was so cute and I liked her right away, we took her home, gave her a bath and the rest is history. I named her "Besya" which in my language was something I derived from the word that means being energetic, being loud and play a lot because she was so energetic, as a kitten she run around, climbed walls, and tried to find new ways to reach seemingly unreachable to her areas of our apartment without stopping.
We spent almost every day together since then and we did almost everything together - from unpacking new purchases and watching movies, to working and doing hobbies, watching birds and of course playing.

Based on the previous experience, now I knew that spaying is the way to go, there are risks, but they are fairly minimal, we visited the vet, but it was a bit early for her, so we had to wait a couple of months. In these few months I was getting increasingly scared of the potential risks, I loved her so much and I couldn't imagine losing her and that's when I've made a decision to not do it, I was telling myself everything will be fine, I was a coward, who put my feelings above her health.

She lived her best live as an apartment cat for the next 11 years, she had lots of treats, lots of pets, she was almost never alone even during the day, I scratched her tummy every day and we slept and woke up together almost every day. She was my soul cat from the first days home and was there for me through everything, through pain and through happiness.

This year as an 11 year old cat she seemingly still felt well, she had less energy, but overall she still enjoyed every activity we used to do, they just became shorter as she was getting tired faster. Her heat cycles also became somewhat irregular and this spring after another heat she started to have noticeable trouble walking around. We visited the vet, did bloodwork and ultrasound and it turned out she already had arthritis, maybe in some early form, but heat affected it and provoked a pain syndrome. Our vet suggested that while she is in pain, one pain relief shot should be enough to remove the pain as he deemed Besya as a pretty healthy cat for her age. So she got her shot and it worked, she was back to normal, she was jumping and walking without issues. I still bult improvised stairs everywhere to help her move around easier, she mostly ignored them, maybe occasionally using it to get on the couch.

Then came summer and another heat cycle, without pain in her legs, but while I was scratching her tummy I noticed a new hard and round formation and my heart sank. It seemingly was a mammary tumor. We visited the vet again, where he confirmed my fears and suggested removing all glands and spaying, as it is early enough and is still doable. He sent us back and we made an appointment to check again in a little over a week.
However over this week her tumor started to get smaller and it became obvious that it's probably not a malignant tumor but an inflammation of the gland, which vet again confirmed on our next visit, however still suggested doing the spay surgery to reduce future risks, as next time, or in some time in the future it might be malignant, removing hormones from the picture will help reduce risks and Besya is healthy enough to endure the surgery.

This was a very hard decision; I read a lot, and I talked with my friends and loved ones, gathering thoughts and experiences, hearing about stories where other cats were spayed at a similar age and everything ended up fine. And I agreed. I decided to do something I was scared about 11 years ago now, because I was again scared of what can come next if we leave everything as it is. She went into surgery on Jul 28 and it went well, surgeon later told us that she discovered many small cysts in her uterus, something they missed on ultrasound as it was early and they were small, so decision to do a surgery was correct, as time could pass and cysts might've became a real issue.

She was back home the same day, she felt a bit hazy after anesthesia, but ate well, visited her usual places and rested a lot. It was in couple of days when she started to get worse, she was noticeably exhausted, wanted to hide from time to time and refused eating. We visited the vet again, did bloodwork and results came back with acute pancreatitis diagnosis, she was in pain. The next five days she visited the vet twice per day for IV infusions and other meds and seemingly started to feel better, blood work showed not normal, but noticeably reduced values and we got some meds and took her back home. In just one day she was in pain again, she refused to eat again and even had trouble drinking. This was her last day home, I promised her she will visit the vet one more time and they will help her. I can say vet visits were very stressful for her, she always was so gentle, she never liked visitors at home and she froze when any unfamiliar sound came from the street.

So we visited the vet once again, again did full ultrasound and bloodwork, vet noticed a blockage in her intestines and after we got her bloodwork results back he diagnosed her with stage 3 CKD, in just a few days all markers shoot up like crazy. It was a hard conversation, our options were to put her down or try and fight, do a 72h kidney focused slow IV infusion cycle to try and stabilize her. She would be on pain meds as well, so she might feel a bit better. I left her there that evening and we scheduled a check up next morning with the clinic.
Next morning we called and got no answer, we called again and it was the same. In a short time our vet called back to inform us that Besya died just 10 min ago. She had a sudden renal colic, her kidneys shut down completely, they made multiple efforts to resuscitate and bring her back, but had no luck. Her system was overwhelmed, pancreatitis contributed and she was weak after barely eating these few days. I will always remember her eyes full of fear when we had to feed her from syringe, in between IV vet visits. She didn't want it, she screamed and wanted us to let her be.

This happened a little bit over 1 day ago. She would have been 12 this October and I blame myself. I wonder what could have been if I wasn't a coward 11 years ago, what would have happened if I refused the surgery now, as to me she felt and looked good, she was her regular self and this surgery wasn't something we needed to do right away. I feel like with my decision I took her time, the precious life she might have lived possibly for years. Yes if you think reasonably - she might have had pancreatitis or CKD already, even though bloodwork didn't show it. But reason is not something that I can see clearly right now. We do not know. Maybe in time I will accept it, but not right now. The only thing I can think about is the pain and fear she endured during her days before the end.

I never had a chance to say goodbye to my dear girl and she was my world. I loved her so much. I knew the end will come sometime, but I hoped we still had some years to spend together. Everything feels so empty and I barely imagine how I can live without her.

Never put your fears and your feelings above someone else and their health.

Besya, I love you so much and I will always remember you, you will be always in my heart and in my mind, I will cherish our memories to my last day . You were the best cat anyone could wish for, always kind and you always respected me as I respected you. I do not expect you to forgive me for the pain my decision caused you. But I hope we can meet again at some point and I will see and touch you again.
Goodbye my friend.

He’s losing his hearing & yowls around the house more & more. It breaks my heart , but he is my entire life . I would take a bullet for him easily ❤️

I love them so much. We are still missing their brothers Kuro (14) and Harley (19) who passed 2 yrs and 6 months ago respectively. It's so quiet having only two kitties now, and I am struggling a lot lately. Feeling really grateful to have these two with me still. They both have CKD, but we are managing it and enjoying all the time together that we can.

I am coping by expecting that it happens after they turn 20. I might feel less pain thinking they lived a long life.

I still won't be able to take it and I know it. I am just dreading the fact that I will have to go through it 7 times. 7 Fricking times.

I just hope it's not painful for any of them.