Trying to Cope With the Loss of a Pet

Today I’m not here to write about tips for raising a vegan baby or the best eco friendly products for your little one. Although if that’s what you want to read about, feel free to check out those posts.

I’m simply here to share my feelings and grief over the loss of my beloved cat, Muffin.

To give some background, Muffin was always a sick cat. I found him at my previous job, 4 years ago, as a small kitten.

He had flies around him and I feared he was dead. Luckily, upon examining him closer, he was still alive but looked terrible.

I brought him straight to my vet who saw that he was constipated and needed an enema. I won’t go into all the procedures that he needed to undergo.

He came home with me and I loved him so much!

Around 3 years ago, he developed a disease where his immune system was destroying his red blood cells. He was severely anemic and needed a blood transfusion.

This was the first time he was hospitalized. The first time I had to fear for his life and hope that he would survive the whole ordeal.

Thankfully, he did!

But he needed to take medication twice daily for the rest of his life. This medicine suppressed his immune system so it wouldn’t destroy his red blood cells.

As you can imagine, this resulted in him having a very weak immune system. He would get sick very often and needed antibiotics a lot.

A few weeks ago, I noticed he wasn’t eating that well. Now if Muffin isn’t eating, something is terribly wrong with him since he is obsessed with food! Literally, obsessed.

So we took him to the vet and they gave him antibiotics. However, he was only getting worse.

It reached a point where he would simply lie on the floor all day, looking as if he was dead. We knew it was something much worse so we took him to the hospital.

This was last Friday that he was hospitalized.

Every day, the vet would call me to update me on Muffin’s progress. It wasn’t great, to put it mildly.

He wasn’t eating so they needed to insert a tube into his esophagus to feed him like that. Even when feeding him through the tube, he was still not showing signs of improvement. He was very weak and depressed.

I went to visit him several times this past week.

Finally, on Friday, the vet said that Muffin was showing some signs of improvement. When I went to see him on Friday, I noticed this too.

Muffin was more alert and communicated a bit with me.

How did things go terribly wrong?

Saturday morning, I got a call from the hospital. A dreadful call. The call that would change my life. A call that would rip my heart out and smash it into pieces.

All I heard was “CPR” and I panicked. I screamed “Noooo!” It couldn’t be true.

Muffin passed away.

My poor little baby. Taken from me. Just like that. He was dead. He will never come home with me.

I will never be able to cuddle with him again. Never be able to pet him as he kneads on my lap. That soft little bundle of joy that I brought home 4 years ago is just gone.

The vet said something about him regurgitating and it went down the wrong pipe, filling his lungs and suffocating him.

But later that day, the vet who was treating him the whole week, said it wasn’t that but maybe he had cardiac failure because his body was just collapsing from all this.

Whatever it is, they were all surprised since it looked like he was improving.

At first, I wanted to know what caused his death, but then I realized that it doesn’t really matter. Nothing will bring him back so why does it help to know?

I cried and cried. I sobbed. My vision was blurred from so many tears streaming down my face. My princess Haylee knew I was hurting and she wanted to be close to me.

Two of my other cats came to me to comfort me.

I couldn’t stop crying. How can my little baby be gone? Why did he have to die?

It’s not fair. I kept saying these words. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

This was the first death that really hit me like this.

I needed to see him though, to make it feel real. I just couldn’t believe it.

So we went to the hospital and I asked to see him. Everyone told me that they don’t recommend it. It’s not a pleasant sight.

I didn’t care. I needed to see Muffin. I needed to say my final goodbye. I needed to beg him to wake up.

I opened the bag that he was in and just burst into tears again. My little Muffin lying there, just lying there, dead.

Dead.

Cold and dead.

“Come on Muffin, open your eyes!” I begged him with tears streaming down my face.

I opened his eyes to see those beautiful eyes of his. Whenever he used to look at me, it felt like he looked into my soul.

I rubbed his soft fur, trying to nudge him to wake up, thinking he was just in a deep sleep. But he wasn’t. The cold truth of death stared at me instead.

My precious baby Muffin died and nothing can bring him back.

That’s the worst reality one can have. Sometimes bad things happen but they can be reversed.

With death, there’s no way to reverse it. He’s just never coming back. SO. NOT. FAIR.

We buried him in the forest. My poor baby. Poor muffin.

Although I have 8 other cats at home, it’s empty without Muffin. Everyone loved him. He was such a gentle cat. Such an angel.

I have a gaping hole in my heart now. I don’t want to move on or forget about him. I want him to be the center of my world because I want him to be here, alive!

If you’re experiencing the loss of a pet, I know what you’re going through. I know how difficult it is to live your life right now.

Send me a message privately if you want and we can grieve together. Or you can comment below on how you dealt with your grief, so others can get some helpful tips which I cannot provide right now.