Shadow – our loss :(

This post is the hardest of all. It makes me hate my blog. I wish I didn’t have to talk about this, but if I’m going to keep on blogging (which I’m not sure of right now), I WILL NOT just go on to some other subject and ignore this like it didn’t happen. Because it did…and it affects us SO MUCH.

On Wednesday October 24, our precious, dear, perfect, sweet kitty-girl Shadow died unexpectedly. She was only nine years old. In fact, this November 7 would have been exactly nine years of her living with us.

For the past month, we noticed Shadow wasn’t eating as much or using her box as much. We thought it was maybe due to our increasing attention/activity with Lillian, and how we very sadly didn’t have as much time for Shadow anymore. 🙁 That part kills me in retrospect. I’d pay all the money in the world to go back and cuddle, kiss, comb, play with, and just lay with and pet Shadow for days on end without ceasing. She deserved it. I want to go back and let her lay in the sun in our yard outside, instead of forcing her to stay in when we’d play with Lillian outside for the past month. (We thought we were protecting her, in case she was sick and had picked up something from outside.) Oh we have so many regrets.

But the biggest ache and heart-wrenching grief is from missing her, and for witnessing her traumatic end. We never ever ever imagined her going like this, and so soon. We thought she’d die peacefully of old age here with us many years from now. Why did it all have to happen now, and like it did??! 🙁

We thought we should do something about her weight-loss and lack of appetite, so after a round of antibiotics that initially helped but then she stopped eating again, we had a mobile vet come here to the house, so as to spare her any stress of a car ride which she hates. He did a blood test after sedating her. He thought her breathing didn’t sound good after sedation and that worried us. After she came out of sedation and he was gone, Shadow was overjoyed to see she was at home and with just us again. She purred and rubbed against us so hard for petting that she would almost somersault on the ground to be pet and loved on. That makes me happy to remember.

The results of the blood test shocked us – he said her bilirubin levels were very high. He had also felt what he thought was an obstruction in her bowel. We thought we were looking at surgery. We were worried for Shadow, but optimistic, thinking that we’d pull her through the surgery and fatten her back up when she was healthy again. He said he needed an ultrasound done and an x-ray to determine what the mass was.

So on Wednesday Oct. 24 we took Shadow to a vet near our house. A special radiologist team came from a larger hospital to work on Shadow there. We said a rushed goodbye to Shadow as the took her from us, never dreaming we wouldn’t see her as herself ever again. 🙁 🙁

We got back home, waiting to hear we could go back in a few hours and pick her up to take her home. Right away there was a call, telling us the ultrasound showed she had fluid surrounding her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe, asking permission to tap it – which we of course agreed to. We were devastated for Shadow. What a shocking thing to hear. Even if for the last few days I thought it looked like Shadow was breathing harder, I just thought it was because she wasn’t feeling well. 🙁

They also called again asking if they could do a fine needle aspirate of her spleen, liver, and a lymph node. We cautiously agreed. What did this mean? They suspected cancer. 🙁

A while later we get a call telling us Shadow is ready to come home. Yay! We go to pick her up. She’s hoarsely meowing in her crate and we tried to comfort her. She was strangely silent on the car ride home. We carried her up to her favorite fleece bed in our bedroom, and she was very groggy. We assumed it was a result of the sedation, and that it was still wearing off.

But when next Josh saw her, she’d crawled off the fleece and was feebly trying to turn over and stand up on the carpet, but flopping weakly from side to side. I was there next to her too and we panicked when we saw she was bleeding from the mouth. She occasionally meowed and attempted to move but was so weak she’d flop. Oh it was agony to witness. BUT I STILL HAD NO IDEA she was going to die. I truly thought she was just having a complication from one of the procedures and was still messed up from anaesthesia.

The mobile vet was almost at our house because he was on his way to pick up the aspirate samples and lung fluid samples that the vet had sent with us to give to him. As soon as he was here we rushed him up to look at her and he thought it was just from sedation too, and that she’d bitten her tongue to explain the blood. I never believed that, but I so wanted to. 🙁 He left with the samples and as I was closing the door after him Josh yelled down to me from where he was with Shadow “Don’t let him leave…get him back! Quick!” With a sinking stomach I ran and brought him back into the house. Josh yelled down “She’s going!” I screamed “NOOOOOOOOOO!!” While carrying poor Lillian and running up the stairs. Josh and I regret so much that for Shadow’s final minutes we were screaming, hysterical wrecks. We want to do so many things over. 🙁 The vet came in and squeezed her heart and got her jumpstarted and told us to rush her to an emergency vet. How I hate that he gave me hope!! He should have told us the truth, that he’d kept her heart ticking but she was gone. Oh it kills me. 🙁

Josh placed her tiny, skeletal, limp body chest down on my lap in the car as the vet instructed us. He told me to massage and squeeze her heart if needed on the car drive. That drive is the most hellacious, horrible, traumatizing event I’ve ever lived through. I know when Shadow left me. She died on my lap not two minutes from our house. I was hysterical, screaming, crying, praying, and pleading. And I was queasily attempting to squeeze her heart…it felt so fragile, so wrong, like I was hurting her. But I desperately wanted her alive, so I kept on trying.

With tears streaming down my face I ran her in my arms into the emergency vet. They saw me coming and had people run out to take her from me. I sobbed and told them what had happened. They rushed her back to try to resuscitate her. I wasn’t allowed to follow. They put me in a room. Josh and Lillian joined me. The vet came and asked if he should continue CPR even though it was a small chance. YES we of course wanted that!! Still a spark of hope! Only to be dashed and crush us when he came back to say she was gone. Ohhhhhhh Shadow, noooooooo. Oh it was horrible. We cried and were devastated. Our perfect sweet companion, our beloved family member. Our first baby. She was a huge part of our lives, and so important to us.

My Mom met us there for moral support and she was crying and devastated too. What a horrible horrible day. What a horrible loss. Mom took Lillian outside while they brought Shadow wrapped in a lavender towel for us to say our final goodbyes to her. That. Was. So. Hard. It was shattering to see her beautiful but lifeless eyes, and her mouth open. Her body was wrapped up but her head was visible. I softly pet her head as we mourned her and prayed over her. We were, and are, crushed.

Our house in not the same. Our house is silent, and missing her huge, loving, comforting presence. She used to “broom” (mewoing chirping sound of greeting) whenever she’d see us. She used to meow if either of us left the room. She could always be found laying in the sun in a window, on the floor, on our bed, on her fleece bed, on her round bed in the bonus room, in her cylinder by the window, or on her dining room chair looking out the sliding glass door. Or she would beg to go outside by the french doors in the garage.

We wish we could go back in time and have her here on our bed with us every night. She slept every night with us for nine years.  Our feet miss finding her warm body against them at night. Lillian wakes up and asks for “dadow?” She imitates the sound Shadow made when scratching in her cat box. Even swipes her hand like a paw. We told her Shadow’s in heaven with God, and we pray for Shadow. Whenever Lillian sees Josh and I hugging each other and crying, she folds her hands in prayer, says “Amen” and then says “Dadow”. She is amazingly smart and sweet.

Our hearts are broken, and we don’t feel the same. It will forever be different now. We are so grateful that we have our precious daughter Lillian. As our family says, without her, Josh and I would be wrecks right now. We’d be in a dark room, not coming out of bed even to eat. I know we’d have sunk. But for Lillian, we keep going. We are doing things…pumpkin patch, Halloween carnival, trick or treating. We feel sorrow, but she brings us much joy. We have pain in our hearts when we pull up to our empty house. No beautiful silver kitty in the window, or in the kitchen meowing and waiting for us to open the garage door and greet her. It’s such an old habit that I find myself accidentally almost telling her like I always do as we’re leaving “We’ll be back before you know it, Shadow! We love you!” And when I’m walking upstairs to bed at night, I keep accidentally expecting to see her sweet gray body curled on the bed waiting for me.

Words just CAN NOT express enough how much we miss her, how sorry we are for her, and how much we want things to have been different. We were so angry and blaming ourselves and the vets at first. Some slight healing from blame came when we heard the vet tell us that Shadow was already dying and we didn’t know it. She would have drowned to death with the fluid in her if we hadn’t taken her in. We just HATED that she died the very day we were taking her to the vet to help her though. But God was looking out for us and our Shadow. Just doesn’t feel good anyway. Death is always hard, and especially such a shocking, unexpected, and traumatic death.

We were called last night and told that we can come pick up Shadow’s ashes. We will go today after Lillian gets up from her nap. We will buy a beautiful box to store her food and water bowls, her favorite toys, her fleece bed, and her favorite treats. We will keep her remains in the house with us until we can decide if we want to bury her in our yard or keep her in the house always. We’re not sure how we’ll feel yet. We don’t even have any expectation as to what the “pet memorial” as they call it, will look like.

Once again we’re bringing Shadow home in the Fall. This time it is not for a life full of happy memories and cherished time together, but for mourning, and remembrance. All we have left of Shadow is pictures and memories, and that hurts. That feel so wrong, to never have a moment with her again. Never feel her soft fur, or smell her snickerdoodle-smelling breath as she grooms her luxurious coat. Never feel her sandpapery tongue licking my forehead and cheeks and nose again. I love her and I miss her so much. We all do. Our family has been so loving, supportive, caring, and understanding. They’ve let us cry to them, and play the what-if game. That has to be behind us now though, and we have to move forward, for Lillian’s sake. We have to cherish our wonderful memories with Shadow, and try to start to heal. It’s so hard. We love you always, sweet sweet Shadow girl.

Shadow 2003-2012 Our Beloved special silver kitty

our doo-soo dwee-so ; meh groy ; ned rumbler ; great grey ; doo-sis dwuh-sess. Don’t even know how or why but these are some of the nick names we said and/or sang to her.

She is always a part of our hearts and souls, even if she isn’t a part of our lives anymore. 🙁 🙁

We love you Shadow. We miss you always.