I can't believe it
We let our sweet baby Nugget pass the rainbow bridge yesterday. He had a little high but was much much slower than in any other highs and needed multiple laying down breaks during his ways. It seemed that he sometimes forgot what he was on the way for. Food was eaten but in such miniscule amounts that it's not worth mentioning. He was still very interested in us and our doings and seemed to want to follow us. He drank for MINUTES at the fountain, it went as long as him taking 10 Minutes to drink. The illness progressed what seemed to be overnight so much farther. We used that little window of feeling good he had yesterday to euthanize him.
I'll miss his face-cleaning sessions on furniture corners, his sunbathing while laying on his back looking like a fat sack of potatoes, his demands for liver sausage treats, his nightly concerts, the noise he makes when jumping from places too high and landing on his face (it was a little painless oomph), him laying down in shoes with his stump and his "stumpling" (we called it that when he used his stump to do things). He had so much character it's unbelieveable.
I kind of also have to vent here because it was traumatic to me, please don't read ahead if you're sensitive to details of it. If any mod finds it wrong or sees a rule-break that I'm very likely very tone-deaf to then please contact me before just deleting my post and i'll remove this part and make another. And please be merciful, it's still all too raw and every little thing kind of shatters me right now.
The vet told us she'll administer everything subq but didn't do "the last blow" that way. She didn't tell me to look away or close my eyes for the last part. It looked so brutal and that brutal image of his peaceful passing is now burned into my memory. I now feel like it wasn't peaceful. I never euthanized a pet before, all pets we've had prior passed naturally and just dropped dead or fell asleep, this was my first time. I am in no way promoting letting your babies pass from renal diseases naturally, being azotemic and uremic feels horrible. I know and heavily emphasize euthanasia is important for cases like these. I just kind of.... needed proper explanation and guidance through that rather than a slip-slap and doneso thing. He also just felt so weird to the touch. There was something hard just below the ribs and no one cared to explain what it was. She did give me a condolence card with a quote in it, and it makes healing a bit easier. I've never seen or heard of a vet doing that.