My best buddy of 13 years died yesterday morning at home. I've been through some traumatic things in my life - devastating breakups, my own stage IV cancer diagnosis, finding my best (human) friend dead at home - but throughout it all Puck was with me. In the past week I had come to terms that he was likely coming to the end of his life since, for the first time, he was acting his age (roughly 16), but I never ever considered that he would go at home versus peacefully at the vet.
While physically moving a few weeks ago, he stayed at his regular vet and they let me know he had lost 3 pounds in the past 6 months. I couldn't believe I didn't notice but he was fluffy and still eating normally. Bloodwork and urinalysis ruled out diabetes and kidney disease, and my vet suggested that it may be due to his years of IBD that was under control through diet and pred. Post-move, he seemed more fragile but I chalked that up to nerves from the change. He was still cuddly and following me from room to room, enjoying being close to me but sitting in a new window or cat bed in each space to watch the birds.
We made an emergency vet visit on Thursday because he had stopped eating more than a few bites in the past 24 hours and threw up 3 times overnight. He had less food motivated over the past month, but I attributed it to getting tired of his prescription food (which happened frequently, but it was the only thing that didn't give him diarrhea) coupled with a move. They gave him some fluids, anti nausea meds, and meds to help boost his appetite and suggested an ultrasound. We've been down this road before with the IBD and he needed to be sedated for the ultrasound. At his age, I was reluctant to put him through that, especially since I made the decision when he was diagnosed with IBD that we would not pursue chemo at his age to prolong his life if it was going to mean a lesser quality of life. As a lymphoma survivor myself who understood what was going on, I couldn't put him through it.
Thursday night, he ate a bit more. We sat together on the kitchen floor and I fed him bit by bit on a spoon. Looking back, he probably didn't want to eat but was just trying to make me happy.
It took a bit to get him purring, and he wasn't nearly as engaged with me as he normally was - no leaning into me, no returning my headbutt. I brought him with me to sleep in the bed, and while he didn't want to sleep next to me he stayed at the foot of the bed.
When I woke up, he wasn't in my room and didn't come as he normally would when called. I looked in the normal places and he wasn't there. Finally, I looked under the couch and he was huddled up with his pupils dialated. When I said his name, he cried. Every time I said anything, he cried. I tried to coax him out but he wouldn't move, so I told him to hang on and we'd go to the emergency vet. In the 30 seconds it took for me to put on shoes and grab his crate, he was gone.
He waited, probably in a lot of pain, to say goodbye to me one last time. I'm so devastated. I know you can't look at it this way, but if I had any idea of what was happening then I would have let him go at the vet yesterday or stayed up with him all night giving him all of his favorite treats. My boyfriend (his other favorite person) would have come to be with him to say goodbye. The vet who treated him at the emergency vet thinks he likely had a small stroke on earlier this week that left him weak and a little unsteady. Then he likely had a much more major stroke on Friday morning, probably tied to undiagnosed cancer.
In my entire adult life, I've never been without him. We were alone for months together during the pandemic. My whole life revolved around him and his needs, especially in the last few years where his IBD needed more and more specialty care to keep him comfy or to clean up after the fact.
When I got Puck, I was volunteering in a cat room of a major animal shelter because I was afraid if I was in the dog room I'd go home with a dog. Puck walked right up to me with his tail in the air and jumped up on my lap - and that was it. He came home with me that night and since then accompanied me on one cross country move, several apartments with roommates (and their cats), and finally living on our own. He turned me into a cat person. I'm not sure how to handle the loneliness of living alone without him or the guilt of feeling like I failed him. I don't know if I've ever loved anyone as much as I loved him. He was my fuzzy, destructive perpetual toddler.
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