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awsun

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Everything posted by awsun

  1. I'm keeping his collar too. I've had that heart tag with his name engraved on it on his collar from Petco since probably weeks after I got him. 😻
  2. I'm sorry to hear the story about your Kitty. It's amazing how fast they can go downhill, it's such a whirlwind. But 25, wow, that is so amazing! That's a testament to how well you took care of her - at least that's what people are telling me when they comment about Sunni being almost 19. Yeah that's what my vet told me about looking at their pupils - at least when they suddenly go blind. I'm not sure what they look like if they were born blind. But as you can see from my picture his eyes were more black than that yellow/green that we're used to seeing and that was the indicator for him. Now when I look at older pictures it's all I can see is the major difference in the eyes.
  3. And little did I know looking at this picture that the black in his pupils was him going blind at the time. Now I look back at my old pictures and see the dramatic difference - something I'll always now notice in cat's eyes. 😥
  4. Thank you kayc, he is beautiful (still can't say was or anything past tense because to me he is still here in my heart). People always told me how great he looks for 18. He did look healthy up until the last couple days and then I guess he just couldn't hide it anymore. 😿 His vet had said to me on that horrific day "his body is just shutting down". And thanks this has definitely been a hard process for sure.
  5. I took me a long time to be able to look at pictures and still it is very hard to do without crying. 😿 Here is my handsome Sunshine just three weeks before he was taken from me. 💔
  6. Thank you. Oh wow what a beautiful picture! He definitely is a handsome boy. I haven't brought myself to even look at pictures yet of my Sunni. What is your baby's name? Yes I'm not sure if you live alone but I do and a silent empty house is torture. It's the worst feeling. I keep moving through my daily routine expecting him to be there and everytime I don't see him my stomach turns in knots. This is so awful and I agree it feels like my grief will be forever too. Just know that you are not alone in feeling that. 😿
  7. I talk to Sunni, too. I hold the blanket that he last lay on up to my face to see if I can still smell him but I can't. 😢 I used to like coming home from wherever I was at knowing that I would get to see my baby and I had something to look forward to. Now I try to do anything to leave my apartment as every time I go to the other room and expect to see him laying on the couch and I don't it makes me sick and my reality creeps in. You sound like a very loving dog owner and I'm sure that Shelby was lucky to have you.
  8. I hear exactly what you're saying. I think I love Sunni more than I loved anything in this world. I told him that almost every day. And I completely know the feeling of having a knot in your stomach. I felt that for the first week. I wasn't eating well and just had this constant sick to my stomach feeling. And the cloning idea....how interesting. I know it's hard to imagine having another perfect angel like we've had. Animals are so special and it's amazing how strong our connection and bond are that we have with them especially for that length of time. I can't imagine going through other major significant losses at the same time. I'm really sorry to hear that.
  9. I know how you feel. My Sunni was so perfect too...I got so lucky with him. And waking up without him next to me is like a punch in the gut. How long did you have Shelby for?
  10. Hi Antoinette, I am right there with you. I just posted my story about Sunni last week. I also had to make that awful choice of euthanasia. It happened within a matter of days where my baby declined as well so I know exactly how you feel about second-guessing yourself. I've been dealing with that remorse for a while. It all happened so fast. Sunni was on gabapentin as well but thankfully no horrible side effects like that. The day after I almost fainted and passed out in my friend's bathroom so I know how you feel about your stomach being sick. I keep thinking that I will just wake up and this will be a horrible nightmare and my life will go back to what it was with him. What was your baby's name? Just know that you are not alone. There are some nice people on here that are willing to help.
  11. I agree with you kayc. It is a process and it's going to take a lot of time to adjust to my new life without my Sunni. It's just not something I can just push through or "move forward" from immediately. It's so hard to leave my apartment and come home when I'm so used to calling out to him "Sunni Bunny!" or the myriad of other "pet names" (pardon the pun) that I would call him and know that he's not there. And getting up in the morning and not having him next to me is awful. It's those everyday things that I'm so used to doing on a daily basis that are staring me in the face right now and are very difficult to deal with. And thank you for the additional links. I'm thinking right now on how to memorialize him and make sure he knows that I will never forget him and that I will love him forever.
  12. Thank you all for the replies. It helps to know that there are caring people out there that are going thru the same thing that I am and understand my pain & sorrow. I'm not at the place yet where I can post pictures, maybe someday soon. I did put them away only because it was too painful for me to look at but like kayc I will probably be that person who has a shrine of Sunni up sooner rather than later. He was indeed my soul kitty and I told him every day that I would love him forever. I would actually love to get portrait like the one Tinac drew for her baby and hang that up. Also don't let anyone think that you're weird for not putting away things yet. I only did because it was more painful for me to see it than not and thankfully I had friends who did it for me to help ease that pain. Thank you all for helping me to see that I was an amazing pet parent. I'm slowly starting to get to the point where I'm believing that after everyone has told me that over the past week. And thank you for the resources kayc. I'm sure over time as I read them over and over again I will start to resolve some of the guilt I feel for what I felt I had to do in the end - since things escalated with him so quickly. My emotions have been all over the place from anger to now I feel numbness from crying so much... I'm sure this is a normal stage of grief. As for grieving in my own time, I definitely agree. I think a lot of people just look at me and think you had to know this was coming, he was 18, etc. Logically I did I just never knew that it would be the way it was and of course at 22 years old I was not thinking about the end. I was thinking about getting a kitten. And missing miss tizzy- I'm sorry for your loss as well and I agree that the memories that are most vivid to me are of course that last day and the 12 hours that preceded it of me holding him in my arms in bed. I stayed with friends for the two days after as I couldn't come back to my apartment and sleep in this bed. It was too difficult to relive those images in my head. I pray that one day that those images will fade with time and I will have my almost 19 years of good memories to reflect back on.
  13. Tinac, Oscar is gorgeous! And that picture is amazing. Your story sounds so similar to mine. I just posted my story about my Sunni that I just lost last week. I adopted him at about 8 weeks & had him for almost 19 years. I am 41 and have had him since I was 22 so I know exactly how you feel. And my Sunni used to lay in my lap in the same way that Oscar did! I loved it. It sounds like we have very similar feelings about what we're both going through. The pain is intense and I'm not sure how I'm going to go through the rest of my life without him by my side. I feel lost. And I 100% agree that animals give us the most unconditional love there is in this world... it is true love.
  14. I just lost my beautiful Sunni (cat) of almost 19 years...he would've been 19 in July. We'd been together since he was 8 weeks old. He was my world, my everything, the reason I got up every morning, the only thing in this world that seemed to make me happy. I don't have kids or a husband. He was my child. He meant everything to me. My heart and soul are shattered. Every day I wake up now to an empty apartment and it is the first time I've ever lived alone in my life without him and no one seems to understand that. No one seems to get how this has affected me and shattered me to my core -or understand the overwhelming guilt I feel for killing him. Yes, in this moment, I still say it that way because of the guilt I feel for doing it. I cry out to him all the time to tell him how sorry I am and how much I love him and how sorry I am that this happened to him. The silence in my apartment is deafening. My friends just came on Sunday to remove his pet steps, help take down the pictures that I can't look at right now and clean out the litter box for me. We took everything to my parent's basement. Everyone in my family has been pet owners and they've all been thru this before but don't seem to understand that I haven't been. He's my first & only pet. What is wrong with people (family members) asking me if I would ever get another pet asking me about my new job - things that don't matter to me at all right now! Just DAYS after it happened. It's crazy to me that they can say such insensitive comments just days after he's gone!! Like you have to move on, you have to get a new routine, this is part of being a pet owner, etc. - as if I don't already know that. I got Sunni when I was 22 and I just turned 41. I've had him my whole adult life & have never known anything else. They act as if I'm just going to wake up the next week and go on with life as if everything is okay when it's not. Sunni meant everything to me. I just feel this happened so fast. He'd lived with kidney disease for almost 4 years & I thought that was going to be what took him away from me. The month of April was the worst of my life. 4/1, we went to his regular check-up to check his kidney values like I've been doing every 6 months since he was diagnosed & his numbers had risen since last time but he was still in stage 3. My vet even told me how amazing I take care of him & how great that was - for him to be "stable" with kidney disease for as long as he had. Then almost literally the day after we got home, I started noticing he was acting funny - walking around in circles, just seeming lost. I thought for sure it was just dementia. This went on for the first couple of weeks of April. Then on 4/19, he started having trouble going potty or wouldn't go at all. He'd had a urinary obstruction back when he was about 6 & I knew it could reoccur in male cats, so the next day (my birthday of all days, a day that now means nothing to me) I called the vet & brought him in. They expressed his bladder & then the vet told me the news -- he was blind. What?! Here I was thinking it was just dementia, never even thinking that maybe he just couldn't see. She said for a cat to suddenly go blind it typically means a neurological defect/brain tumor. That was the first blow. She said take him home & see how he does. He was okay for those next 6 days -- Tuesday -- Sunday -- adjusting to being blind. Then Monday 4/26 came & he started acting funny again -- wouldn't go in the potty & starting to not be able to walk at all. It was horrifying to see. On Tuesday, I put him in the litter box & he just fell over. That night I rushed him to the emergency vet again to have his bladder expressed & the next 12 hours were the worst of my life. The emergency vet wasn't as empathetic as you would think as she said to me "you're not bringing home a healthy, happy cat & what are your goals for Sunni?" My goals? UGH! At that point, I knew it was over but there was no way I was doing it there. I took him home that night, laid him on the bed & held him for the next 10 hours without a wink of sleep knowing what I had to do the next day. The next morning, 4/28, I called my regular vet and made the most awful decision I've ever made in my entire life. It was the most horrific day. He was lifeless in my arms but still breathing and it was possible he wouldn't make it through the rest of the day. Everyday I live with the guilt, the pain and the suffering for what I've done. No one seems to truly get that. They keep telling me that I made the right decision, that I gave him the best life & that I was an amazing pet parent and deep down it may be true but it still hurts so bad!!! I have never really lost a lot of things in my life and nothing to this extent would ever come close to this kind of pain & heartache. My grief is overwhelming me. He was the best thing in my life and now I have nothing. I wake up to silence and emptiness and just try to go through the motions of the day cuz I feel like I have to. Thanks to whoever listens to my story.
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