Missed a Day...

I missed my first journal entry here. It was unavoidable.

Yesterday, our cat, Lilah, started acting weird. She couldn't really walk and looked like she was listing to one side. Very shaky. She also had a glazed look in her eyes which wouldn't fully open so it was hard to really tell, but I think they were dilated. She was completely out of it.

Her symptoms were first noticed a little after 6pm. Before that she was fine as far as anyone could tell. No one could remember letting her in or outside. She was in my room all morning just sleeping.

We left for the emergency vet clinic an hour after her symptoms were noticed. I honestly wasn't sure she'd be alive by the time we got there. They took her from us around 7:30pm. We finally talked to the doctor around 8pm. We decided we couldn't afford full hospitalization so opted to start with blood work to figure out if what was going on was even treatable then go from there. The doctor said it would take one or two hours for the labs to come back so my daughter and I went to the store to walk around (It was already 9pm by then so we had to find an open store because Walmarts close at 10pm now).

Anyway, they called us back while we were at the store that her kidney's were failing. Treatment would be invasive, full hospitalization, lots of meds and tests. In other words: expensive. And in the end, there was no chance she'd survive more than a couple days. Actually, there was little chance she'd make it with no side effects.

We decided to not put her through that. It seemed pointless to spend all of that money and time when she would just suffer and die anyway.

She went to sleep in my daughter's arms, hopefully knowing she was loved and will be missed.

First symptoms at 6pm, gone by 10:30pm. It was that fast. We still have no idea what made her sick. The doctor's best guess is she got into some lilies somewhere. It could have been as little as her brushing against them then licking her fur. But we don't have any in the house, and I haven't noticed any in the neighborhood (but I was never looking for them). But the way it progressed so quickly and violently syncs with that kind of toxin. But it could have been anything she got into. She's not the kind of cat to eat random foods and doesn't usually get into people food like the other cats so I just don't know what happened. My daughters think the jerk across the street might have poisoned her because he hates us.

It was a really rough, emotional night. We got home around 11:45pm. I was too stressed to do my journal entry. I'm just trying to chill today and not think to much about what happened. I'm worried about our other cats getting into whatever she did, but since I don't know what that was, there's literally nothing I can do to stop it from happening again. The 14yo didn't take it well. She's still sleeping, probably with her cat (Leo) tucked up next to her. The 10yo burst into tears this morning after being okay for hours after getting up. It just kind of hit him all at once. I emailed his guidance counselor about talking to her about it this week.

It's going to be a long week, I think.

RIP Lilah 3/31/17 ~ 9/12/20