On Wednesday night, I got off work at 4pm and we headed to VA to pick up JC's parents. We spent the night in Leesburg and picked them up early Thursday morning to bring them back down here to NC to look at apartments. On the ride home, James sent me a text and said he thought I needed to take Krissie to the vet when I got home because she was having trouble walking and when she did, she would cry. I thought maybe she had jumped and hurt her leg or her back....but oh if that was the only problem. I checked on her by text throughout the day when the boys were home and she wasn't getting any better. When Randall got home from work he said she was laying by the garage door and had peed, which was completely unlike her. We were still about 40 miles out at that point. We dropped his parents off at the hotel and came home, by that time it was around 7pm and most of the regular vets were already closed. She was laying in Randall's lap and looked so pitiful when we got there. I picked her up and she meowed but it was soft. JC said she was dying just by looking in her eyes.
We took her to Kannapolis to the Emergency Vet and they immediately took her to the back. When they finally came back out the vet told me that her temperature was 92 which was very low and most cats don't make it back from that. She was severely dehydrated. She was dying. For some unknown reason, I still believed she would make it through this. She was the best cat, she was never sick (or so I thought), she never asked for much, she was always there for me. When I was sick, she laid with me. When I was sad, she comforted me. When JC and I raised our voices, she stepped in between us. She was a comforter...a true mama cat. We had blood work done and it didn't look good, but they put her in an incubator to try to raise her temperature and started giving her fluids. We left to go get dinner with the promise that they would call around midnight to give an update on if her temperature was going up. Unfortunately a little after 10, they called to say she was dying. We tried to get there, but she died just 2 or 3 minutes after he called. Her heart gave out and mine is now broken. Jeremy and Randall were with us and they cried more than I have ever seen them cry. James cried when he got home from work and heard the news. JC cried. My big strong boys/men were all tore up by her loss. We have had her since 2007 and I never thought she would be the one that would go first. She had lost 50% of her body weight (from 8 pounds down to 4). How did I not know? She seemed perfectly normal just a day or two before. A friend told me that cats are good at hiding illness until it was too late.....this time it was too late.
JC told me last night I need to stop blaming myself, but I don't know how.
What if I had taken her to the vet every year for a check up?
What if I had asked them to weigh her back in February when she got her shots?
What if I hadn't changed the food back in February because of Hemi's food allergy?
What if I had noticed that she wasn't eating or drinking correctly?
What if I had noticed she was trying to get warm more?
What if I hadn't used the cleaners in the toilet that I know she drank out of?
What if JC hadn't used the bleach on the shower?
What if I had stayed home and let JC go to get his parents by himself, like the original plan?
What if I had been home and had gotten her to the vet earlier that day?
What if every time I called her my skinny girl, I realized she was skinnier and had her checked?
What if I noticed that she was hiding in places she normally didn't (under the bed, in the cat stand) and actually did something about it?
What if I didn't spend 3 weeks traveling in January for my job, a week with JC in March for our long overdue honeymoon, a weekend trip to VA to pick up his parents?
What if I was here with her instead????
What if I had just stayed and held her instead of leaving her in the incubator?
She wasn't in pain when she died, but I think about her sitting here all day, slowing dying. Trying to get warm and not being able to. Waiting for for me to get home by the garage door, the last place I had went out. Wondering where I was and why I wasn't here comforting her like she did for us so many times.
My heart is hurting so bad. I miss her. I will miss her when I go to the bathroom and she doesn't come in and reach her paw up to be picked up. When I scoop the litter pans. When I look in Hemi's eyes and see the questions. When I went to Petsmart. When I sit at my desk without her. When we are watching TV and she isn't in my lap or on the floor fighting with Hemi. When I lay in bed or cuddle with JC and she is no longer there trying to get in between us. When I was at the vet with Hemi and the little girl cat meowed just like Krissie. Every time I enter my password for the next 100 or so days until this one expires. I will miss picking her up and holding her like a baby in my arms while aggravating her by putting her tail in between her legs and moving it until she would bite it. I will miss her sitting on the back of my chair or on my laptop, or behind my monitor and reaching her paw under it to grab my pen, or when she would sit on my papers or my keyboard to get my attention. I will miss her every time I look at the pillow and blanket next to my bed where she used to curl up. I will miss her every time I clean the guinea pig cage out and she isn't there to give "her kittens" their bath. I will miss her every time I feel Hemi sitting at my feet, where she used to sit. I will miss her aggravating the dogs, jumping and running and playing, fighting with Hemi.
I feel like I killed her. We don't know what happened. She may have been sick for awhile and just not known. She may have gotten sick from a cleaner and her body shut down fast. She may have waited until I was gone so I wouldn't see her suffering. We will never know what caused it. I will forever wonder and even though I know it was her time, I will always wonder if I could have prevented it. She was a good cat and she was a part of our family for so long. We will all miss her.
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