u/elizabethfrothingham

I’m looking for a super airy and light floral with no heavy base notes! Maybe even just a 1-3 note floral!

Maybe it’s just my skin, but a lot of the time the base notes in fragrances get really intense on me and florals I’ve been excited to try just smell really intensely like whatever the base is on me- vanilla, tonka, leather, oud, amber, woodsy notes, ambergris, etc. I’m looking for fragrances that are essentially lacking a heavy base note.

I’m really into Blomb no. 31 dreamy, it’s violet, mimosa, jasmine, almond blossom and musk. The musk is very very quiet in this one. It actually stays jasmine and violet forward on me the whole time I wear it, but it’s sadly pretty short lived. I’m curious about lilac no.4 from universal flowering but I’ve read a lot of reviews about it being heavier than you’d expect for a one note lilac scent. Of course I’m still gonna grab a sample, but I wanna add some others to my cart while I’m at it!

I feel like well done one (or few) note airy fragrances are few and far between! I’m not a perfumer but maybe it’s just hard to nail it without something to ground those airy notes, but I’m asking nonetheless! I see 11:11 by lake&skye recommended a lot for this but on me it was just a warm, woody musk.

I love to sew and turn old clothes into new clothes but I’m realizing I’m at a total loss for how to turn old things into things that will work for SD. I finally realized I’m without a doubt soft dramatic, after years of mistyping as first a gamine just because of my personal style, then DC and then some kind of natural (I don’t know guys, I have no clue what I look like, been a lot of trial and error but hey… I’m home now!) … now I’m left with all these baggy and/or crew neck tee shirts that look awful on me but I do love and don’t want to get rid of or turn into another T-shirt quilt!

I saw one person on here say they cut a vertical line in a baggy tee shirt sleeve and then thread a ribbon through the hem and tie it off to make it one of those slashed cold shoulder things… more of that!! If anyone has ideas like that let me know!

Does anyone know how to sew a boat neck into a tee shirt or have any good tutorials? Basically any neckline sewing/diy hacks anyone has… I’ll be so grateful.

🩷

Today I got my beloved cats ashes back. It’s been 2 weeks and 3 days since she passed. I also got a print of her nose and her paw.

I miss her so much. It hurts every single day. I’ve turned my apartment into a shrine for her, basically. It was just us two. I got so many picures printed out and I have them taped on the wall above wherever they were taken- a bunch of her sitting on my desk, trying to get in between me and my work. A bunch above my bed of us snuggling, her sleeping on a pillow like a person. On her tower I have a bunch of framed photos of her, her most modelesque ones. I have her food and water bowl on there too, and her personal computer I gave her for cat tv when I was at work (it was my old laptop). I’ve been sleeping with her toys and favorite blanket, and I got a stuffed animal that has her exact same little face. I’ve been wanting to get white furry fabric to cut patches out of and sew on her same markings. Still, it feels good to snuggle with. A close family friend sent me another tuxie stuffed animal that doesn’t have the same face but the fur feels the exact same. So I sleep with both.

I still haven’t vacuumed, and I’m not having anyone over. I don’t want a single one of her hairs to be disturbed. Finding one on my pillow or on the bathroom floor is both comforting and gutting.

I’ve collected her whiskers and claw sheaths ever since I got her. I have the whiskers in a little tiny vase and the claws in a little bottle. While I’m glad that I’ve collected them all this time, it also makes me sad that there will be no more to find. I’ve scoured every corner of my apartment, besides under the furniture. No more whiskers to find. No more claws. It’s so painful.

I’ve never had a connected to an animal or human that was as strong and as close as I was to her. It really shocked me, because I’ve grown up with cats. My childhood cat lived for 21 years, from when I was 4-25, and I loved her dearly. I only had this baby for 2.5 years, as I got her when she was already a senior cat. Still, in that short time, I felt a soul connection I’ve never felt before in my whole life. I’m so heartbroken. She was my best friend in the whole world. I want her to come back to me so badly.

I’m not a stranger to grief, my (human) best friend passed a few years ago. When I’m grieving I find I have surges in spirituality/dreamwork/prayer etc. I’ve been reading nonstop about signs people get from beyond, animals coming back to you in the form of another or even sending you a new furry friend. I’m in no way ready for another cat, for a long time, but I also just can’t wrap my head around ever being ready. I look at pictures of her and she was just so perfect. The most perfect being I’ve ever seen. Of any cat I’ve ever seen, no cat has ever evoked such a feeling of euphoria because she was just so cute and perfect. I just want her to come back as she was. I miss her so much.

My house feels so empty, so quiet. It’s weird because she would sleep a lot, of course- not making noise. But still, it feels so painfully quiet. Everything feels so wrong. I notice things feeling wrong that I didn’t expect- walking up to my apartment door and finding the key. The key used to be this thing that stood between me and her at the end of a workday, the last step in getting to see her. Just turn the lock and I was greeted with a screaming, rolling, flipping little baby. Now I am greeted by silence. I try to talk to her anyway but it just makes me sob.

💔

Alright guys, so with all the new hope I’m rewatching and something struck me again just as it did the first time. In season one when hap plays recordings for OA to see if any sound familiar, and the one she pauses at is this staticky noise from Saturn.

I’m not sure if anyone here is familiar with the Law of One, it’s a book of a series of interviews with a woman in the 80s who channeled this being named RA. It’s also available online. It’s similar to the way Darryl Anka channels Bashar these days. Whether or not these people are actually channeling someone else or just their own subconscious/higher self/whatever, I find them so fascinating and do find some wisdom from them that has resonated with me!

Anyway. Law of one is basically, if I had to sum it up super super super succinctly, about how we are all one and everything is one and everything is unity and any perception/sentiment otherwise is a distortion. It’s really a trip though I recommend it!!

Anyway in these interviews, RA says there’s an interdimensional council of sorts-

Ra, Session 6, q8 "This Council is located in the octave, or eight[h] dimension, of the planet Saturn, taking its place in an area which you understand in third-dimensional terms as the rings."

Basically saying they exist at the highest vibration one can exist at before returning to “source”.

It’s been a while since I read law of one but I wonder if there’s any clues or even just inspiration from it that B&Z used, considering the whole theme about integrating one’s selves. I’ve always been soooo into Saturn and the historical worship of it and its spiritual associations so when I got to that scene for the first time in the show I perked up haha.

Thoughts?

Here is our story, a bit of a ramble, and then the things I wish so badly I could have caught on camera :(

Today is one week since my best friend passed. I took so many pictures and videos of my soulcat, Kitty, in the two and a half years I had her. I cherished her so much, she was the best friend I’ve ever had. I grew up with cats and animals but I’ve never had a connection like this. She was my first pet I ever had on my own, not a family pet.

My first apartment as an adult didn’t allow pets, and in my early 20s I got into a horrible relationship. He convinced me to move in with him way too quickly and I was in such a dark place. I was also dealing with the onset of an autoimmune disease that caused so much joint pain I was basically bedridden. I was so miserable. One of his roommates, a wildcard, randomly came home with his beautiful, regal tuxedo senior cat one day from Craigslist. She was so afraid of everyone and spent all her time in the basement, and from what he gathered from the previous owners she wasn’t treated well. Long story short, that roommate ended up getting evicted two weeks later and left the cat with us. But in those two weeks she basically just hid near his room in the basement and ran from people if she ventured out and saw us. When I was home alone though, she would come upstairs and sit in my lap, drooling and purring like a maniac. One day I said to that roommate, she’s a drooler! And he said, really? I’ve never seen her do that. It made me feel like she liked me the best, and I was right. We were so connected.

When that roommate was gone I would go hang out with her in the basement everyday until she finally got the courage to come upstairs permanently. She came into my room one day, snuggled up on the bed and basically never left my side since. She really saved me, I was so miserable, so alone, and I needed her so badly. She hated my ex and would only sleep on the other side of me on the bed and would walk as far around him as possible.

6 months later when I realized nothing in that relationship was ok, I moved out and took her with me. She was my beloved companion over the next year while I got my medications figured out, regained my health and healed my ptsd. She was with me through 4 moves, as each living situation was shitty until this year. We finally moved into our own place, a studio just the two of us, and we were so happy. But then she started to decline. I saw it coming, because she was a senior when we met, but it didn’t make the last 6 months any less horrible. I was constantly anxious and lived like a hermit besides work, wanting to be there for her like she was for me. The last week of her life I slept on the closet floor with her, we had a slow goodbye and I showered her with treats and all the yummy food she couldn’t have while on prescription diets. Last Monday a mobile vet came and she passed at home in my arms. I’m so heartbroken.

Everyday I cherished her so much these last couple of years, I didn’t want to take a moment for granted. I have over 2000 pictures and videos of her, so I would never forget her from a single angle. I tried so hard to get it all on camera.

But still, I’m here a week later wishing I had just a little more time to get some things I could never capture. You know how cats often do the funniest or quirkiest things and catch you off guard, and never when you have the camera out? I never got a video of her rattlesnake tail. She would shake it all crazy when she was really happy, but it would happen so quickly and I never got my phone out in time.

On her last night she was walking around and I was filming her, begging her to rattle her tail. She looked at me almost like an annoyed teenager, gave the most half assed rattle of just the top of her tail haha. That’s all I got. It reminded me of an embarrassed teenager on prom night or something, giving a half hearted quick smile while their parents take pictures saying how beautiful they look. She was funny like that.

Sometimes she would yawn and meow at the same time, *yawww*-eowwwww! Or she would shake her head real fast and meow at the same time too, ra-ra-ra-ra-reow! I never knew when she would do these things so I never got it on camera. A couple times she did all three, AND sneezed at the same time. It was the funniest and cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

She would jump on her tower and scratch like a maniac, especially when she got the zoomies, but again it would happen so fast. I never got her jumping up there and scratch scratch scratching violently and jumping down. Often the sound of her scratching it would wake me up and I knew she would jump on my bed immediately after to wake me up to snuggle. Most of the time I obliged but sometimes I was so tired I would say I’m sorry baby i need to sleep. She only liked to snuggle if I was laying on my back, but I can never fall asleep on my back so I would have to tell her to come sleep by my head or something but she wouldn’t, she would sleep on the pillow next to mine like a person. If she woke me up and I was still half asleep I could switch to my back and fall asleep with her snuggling like that.

I feel so guilty for all the times I was busy doing homework or things like that, where I couldn’t do exactly what she wanted when she wanted. I feel so much crushing guilt. She hated when I was doing work on my computer and she would try to step all over it, I would pick her up and put her in my lap to keep working but she would get annoyed that I wasn’t giving all my attention to her and go chill somewhere else. I feel so guilty.

She got really spoiled the longer I had her. She didn’t like fountains for her water I learned, but she would go over to her water bowl and start howling every couple of hours if she didn’t deem it fresh enough. It wasn’t fresh enough because she would put her paw in it to move the water around before drinking. Again, I thought a fountain would help this but she always avoided it like crazy. I would change her water several times a day and for the past few months she refused anything but bottled water. I never got a video of the yowling in front of her water bowl though. It was almost like if she saw me whip out my camera she would refuse to perform anymore, ha. It was the funniest yowling sound, she sounded like a broken machine or something. I miss her so much.

She would always sleep on my shoulder with her arms and legs wrapped around my arm, if I was laying on my back. I have hundreds of pictures of her doing that but no videos, and it was the cutest thing ever when she would settle down and just PLOP into that position and make a little grunt. I miss her so much. I’m going to get a tattoo of her paw in the spot she always wrapped it on my arm, once I get her ashes and the prints back. I really hope they get the prints right and they’re not smudged. Every day that passes without them I get worried that something went wrong or they got lost. I just want her back so desperately.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. I just want her to be known, she was so special :(

I live alone and have no other pets. I’ve lived alone most of my adult life and so that part isn’t new to me, I don’t really get lonely when it comes to people and when I have had roommates I hated it. I got her 2.5 years ago as a senior cat and she became my best friend. She was actually there with me through having roommates and now back to living alone. She was the first pet I’ve had on my own as an adult. I had lots of cats growing up but she was my soul cat.

My mom came to town to visit for the last week, it so happened that the trip she had planned lined up with her arriving the day my baby passed. My mom went back home yesterday. Being here alone without her or my cat is just excruciating. It seriously knocked the wind out of me to walk in the door last night after trying to go see some friends and have a good time (and stay out of the house because it’s so sad).

What am I even supposed to do? Everything is so wrong. Nobody there excited to see me, nobody I’m excited to see. The spot where her litter was in my bathroom looks wrong with the trashcan there now, instead of under the sink where it was. The places where food and water bowls were are just… empty. I’m making her tower into a little memorial, once I get her ashes back they’ll go there. Right now it has her toys on it and I ordered some photos to be printed of her that I’ll put in frames. Her favorite blankets are on my bed. Her spot on the bed is empty. She always slept next to me with her head on a pillow like a human. It’s so wrong. It’s so empty in here.

I don’t want to vacuum yet, I don’t want her fur to be sucked away. I keep stepping on rogue treats that she would carry off somewhere to finish later but then forget about. I’m also scared to vacuum because what if there’s another whisker somewhere I’ll miss and then it will be sucked up in a vacuum, gone forever? Everything is just so wrong. I feel so empty. But I don’t ever want another cat unless it’s her, and some people have talked about their pets coming back to them and being reborn in another pet or something like that. That’s the only thing I’ll accept. I just can’t. She was my best friend and we only got 2.5 years together. I need her to come back as a kitten so I can show her a good life the whole time, not just the end of it.

I don’t even want anyone to come over because I don’t want anyone to touch her stuff or touch anything really, my mom was fine but I don’t want to wash anything or change anything to how it was when my baby was here. I want everything intact. And if people come over I’ll have to vacuum way sooner too.

I’m getting all the memorials. I put one of her many claw sheaths I collected in a locket I’ve been wearing. I’m so glad I kept every whisker I ever found and gave it in a tiny vase. I ordered a memorial eye necklace from an artist on Etsy. I ordered a paw and nose print with her ashes and I plan to get a tattoo for her. It’s just excruciating, it hurts to breathe and be awake. The only time I don’t feel crushing pain is when I’m snuggling with her favorite blankets in bed with a stuffed animal I just got that looks just like her. I’m just so heartbroken.

It’s day 3 since my baby cat left me. She was a senior cat who I adopted as a senior and she had health issues but there wasn’t enough time. There never is. But the 2.5 years we got together were so unfairly short. She’s the best friend I’ve ever known in my whole life, my soulcat, and everything just feels so wrong. I got a home vet to put her to sleep so I wouldn’t ruin her last day with a vet trip but it still didn’t go the way I wanted and I’m so heartbroken. I did get to have her in my arms as she passed, so there’s that at least.

My mom is staying with me this week (she happened to have a visit planned to fly out anyway, and it’s as if my baby knew when to make it the easiest on me so I wouldn’t be alone at first) but I don’t know what the hell I’ll do when she leaves.

If my mom wasn’t here I probably wouldn’t have done any cleaning. I slept on the floor of my closet with my girl during her last week, and if my mom wasn’t here I might still be. We cleaned up her litter and packed it up in my storage unit. I cleaned her food and water bowls and set them on her tower, along with her treats and toys as a little memorial to her. Again, if my mom wasn’t here I might have just left everything. The spots where her food and water and litter used to be feel so horribly empty. It’s just so wrong. She’s my best friend.

I got a stuffed animal that looks scarily like her online. Well, sort of. It’s going to be a sewing project for me. She was a tuxedo cat, and I found a black cat stuffed animal that looks so much like her in the face. I also got a white teddy bear with the same fur, and I’m going to cut her markings out of the teddy bear and sew them on until it looks just like her. Still, I’ve been snuggling with the black cat every night because my cat used to sleep with me every night. Every time I see it out of the corner of my eye it makes me jump, and feel this wave of relief and then horrible sadness. It looks so much like her already, or at least having this void of black fur on my pillow, but it’s not, and I’m just so sad. But it’s also comforting to hold it at night because she’s gone.

I feel so insane. I don’t want anyone to come to my apartment after my mom leaves. I want everything to stay as intact with my cats dna on it as possible or whatever. I held her in her favorite blanket when she passed, with a towel under her, and as if she was playing one final prank on me she somehow missed the towel entirely and relieved herself only on the blanket when she passed. I was so heartbroken because I didn’t want to wash it, I wanted to keep her scent on it. I have another blanket covered in her fur which I won’t wash but again, if my mom wasn’t here I hate to say it but it might have been hard for me to wash that blanket. I did though, and then rubbed it all over her cat tower at least.

I’m just so sad. I feel like I’m going insane. I’ve experienced loss before but nothing like this, my constant everyday best friend who was also my baby that I took care of and she took care of me. The unconditional love. I’m just so heartbroken. I’m so terrified that she’s angry at me because of the way the vet held her down for the sedation injection and refused to let me touch her until after. I scooped her up before the sedation kicked in and I hope she could still hear my voice but I was so horrified at how he wouldn’t let me touch her and insisted on holding her down by her scruff for that shot. I’m still so devastated about it. I hope she’s not angry, I can’t get it out of my head. I held her for the rest of it and kissed her over and over but I’m just so sad. I’m so so sad.

I think I’m gonna have to try one of those virtual pet loss support groups, has anyone done them? What are they like?

Also, this might sound crazy but does anyone have any stories of their pets coming back to them? I’ve heard of people saying they swear their new pet is their old one’s soul, and the grief is making be absolutely desperate to at least consider that as a possibility. I feel broken and hollow and every breath and movement stings. Even when my mom and I have a moment of laughter I just slump back down after because it feels wrong to be smiling at all. I just want her back so badly. This is such torture

It’s day 3 since my baby cat left me. She was a senior cat who I adopted as a senior and she had health issues but there wasn’t enough time. There never is. But the 2.5 years we got together were so unfairly short. She’s the best friend I’ve ever known in my whole life, my soulcat, and everything just feels so wrong. I got a home vet to put her to sleep so I wouldn’t ruin her last day with a vet trip but it still didn’t go the way I wanted and I’m so heartbroken. I did get to have her in my arms as she passed, so there’s that at least.

My mom is staying with me this week (she happened to have a visit planned to fly out anyway, and it’s as if my baby knew when to make it the easiest on me so I wouldn’t be alone at first) but I don’t know what the hell I’ll do when she leaves.

If my mom wasn’t here I probably wouldn’t have done any cleaning. I slept on the floor of my closet with my girl during her last week, and if my mom wasn’t here I might still be. We cleaned up her litter and packed it up in my storage unit. I cleaned her food and water bowls and set them on her tower, along with her treats and toys as a little memorial to her. Again, if my mom wasn’t here I might have just left everything. The spots where her food and water and litter used to be feel so horribly empty. It’s just so wrong. She’s my best friend.

I got a stuffed animal that looks scarily like her online. Well, sort of. It’s going to be a sewing project for me. She was a tuxedo cat, and I found a black cat stuffed animal that looks so much like her in the face. I also got a white teddy bear with the same fur, and I’m going to cut her markings out of the teddy bear and sew them on until it looks just like her. Still, I’ve been snuggling with the black cat every night because my cat used to sleep with me every night. Every time I see it out of the corner of my eye it makes me jump, and feel this wave of relief and then horrible sadness. It looks so much like her already, or at least having this void of black fur on my pillow, but it’s not, and I’m just so sad. But it’s also comforting to hold it at night because she’s gone.

I feel so insane. I don’t want anyone to come to my apartment after my mom leaves. I want everything to stay as intact with my cats dna on it as possible or whatever. I held her in her favorite blanket when she passed, with a towel under her, and as if she was playing one final prank on me she somehow missed the towel entirely and relieved herself only on the blanket when she passed. I was so heartbroken because I didn’t want to wash it, I wanted to keep her scent on it. I have another blanket covered in her fur which I won’t wash but again, if my mom wasn’t here I hate to say it but it might have been hard for me to wash that blanket. I did though, and then rubbed it all over her cat tower at least.

I’m just so sad. I feel like I’m going insane. I’ve experienced loss before but nothing like this, my constant everyday best friend who was also my baby that I took care of and she took care of me. The unconditional love. I’m just so heartbroken. I’m so terrified that she’s angry at me because of the way the vet held her down for the sedation injection and refused to let me touch her until after. I scooped her up before the sedation kicked in and I hope she could still hear my voice but I was so horrified at how he wouldn’t let me touch her and insisted on holding her down by her scruff for that shot. I’m still so devastated about it. I hope she’s not angry, I can’t get it out of my head. I held her for the rest of it and kissed her over and over but I’m just so sad. I’m so so sad.

I think I’m gonna have to try one of those virtual pet loss support groups, has anyone done them? What are they like?

Also, this might sound crazy but does anyone have any stories of their pets coming back to them? I’ve heard of people saying they swear their new pet is their old one’s soul, and the grief is making be absolutely desperate to at least consider that as a possibility. I feel broken and hollow and every breath and movement stings. Even when my mom and I have a moment of laughter I just slump back down after because it feels wrong to be smiling at all. I just want her back so badly. This is such torture

I did an at home euthanasia but I can’t stop crying, it hurts to be awake right now. It’s the morning after and i feel like I’m dying, it hurts to breathe. I took the last week off work to sleep in the closet with her but the euthanasia didn’t go how I wanted it to and I’m just so heartbroken

Here is my post with pics and what happened during the appt: https://www.reddit.com/r/seniorkitties/s/l1CT4EGh7M

What am I even supposed to do, I feel like I’m being crushed from all sides, I don’t even want to be awake

I’m trying to just be strong for her. I took this whole past week off work and I have next week off too. I’ve been sleeping on the floor of the closet with her, but of course she keeps wanting to find ways to be alone for a while, hiding under other furniture now because she’s uncomfortable. All I want is to snuggle her 24/7 like we used to before her decline. I’ve only had her for 2.5 years, I got her as an older cat, but I’ve never ever known love like this.

I keep trying to focus on how uncomfortable she is. It’s like for the past 6 months she’s been having crashes and rebounds, but each crash gets a little worse, each rebound a little less… rebound-y. They started to get closer together, more rapid too. Everyone online said you’ll just “know” when it’s time. I hadn’t felt any sort of “knowing” so I was holding onto hope all this time, that we still had a couple years together. I spent the last 6 months as a total hermit though, not really leaving the house besides work and cutting back my hours at that, just to be able to be home with her.

Last Friday I had that moment where I “knew”. It was gut wrenching. One of the worst crashes, a week of horrible tummy issues and watching her be in pain, vomiting and diarrhea and avoiding me completely. She’s been getting more and more withdrawn for months which is so unlike her, it makes me feel silly for being in denial so long but then she has a moment of snugggliness and I feel like it’s all so wrong, I’m being evil doing this. She bounced back for a few days after I had resigned myself to making the call, so I postponed that call and then another mini crash. For the past week it’s like, there’s no “good vs bad” days. It’s all bad days with good moments. Truly I mean moments, like 15 minutes twice a day of my old girl back, and the rest of it she’s either sleeping or pacing or sitting there uncomfortable trying to find a good position to be in. Getting mad when I touch her when she’s always been a Velcro cat.

But then there’s the snuggles in the middle of the night, ever since I moved into the closet with her. As I type this she’s rubbing her nose in my ear. It makes me worry that I’m rushing this decision, maybe I could try some homeopathic this-or-that. Maybe this maybe that. It feels so wrong. I’m afraid she’ll hate me forever. I’m afraid something will go wrong- I went with a home euthanasia service but I’m still so scared she’ll be scared or in pain during the first injection. I’m just so, so scared. I’m scared of seeing her lifeless body. I’m scared that she’ll cry out and I’ll lose it. I’m scared for the next ~40 hours until the vet is supposed to arrive because I know my heart will be pounding the whole time and I’m going to be sobbing which apparently isn’t “being strong” for her. Is it better to step outside when I need to sob? But then I feel horrible about leaving her sight. Please help me. I am so scared.

On Monday my baby will cross the rainbow bridge 💔 apologies for posting in here like every other day leading up to it, it’s just helping me and bringing alot of comfort and I’ve just been laying and sleeping with her on the closet floor 99% of the day besides showering and eating. She’s not finishing any of her food, even her favorites, but she still asks for it at her usual times so I don’t want to run out and it still feels wrong to just give her treats until then. She’s not getting enough calories either way but still, just churu isn’t enough 💔

I went to petco today and got her favorites, weruva phos focused (weirdly she just absolutely loved this stuff and I credit it for pulling her out of the last slump 6 months ago, I think I would have lost her then without it), fancy feast beef pate (the vet always said any food is better than no food, and this would usually get her eating again when she refused the kidney diet or weruva and I was waiting for new flavors to come in the mail). I also got her some random other flavors from weruva just so she can try them, she’s always been really picky but she’ll eat the gravy off of anything (I stopped buying gravy wet foods bc that’s not enough calories, just the gravy, and it’s a waste, but right now I don’t care) and I also got her some chicken and cheese churu. I didn’t even know that was a flavor, but she loves dairy so much. I’ve been giving her real cheese too because I want her to be happy during her last week. But I don’t want to upset her stomach so I’m glad I found these. I’m sad I didn’t know about them sooner.

It’s just so surreal. I cried the whole way back from petco. The last time? How? What will I do when I’m not her mom anymore? I’m so heartbroken, I’m trying to be strong for her but it’s so hard. I’m also feeling so plagued with guilt, she has heart, kidney and thyroid issues which are notorious for being hard to treat when they’re altogether. My last resort was trying thyroid meds and when that didn’t work, the y/d diet and then she just crashed and I knew 💔 part of me wonders if I caused this crash by trying to treat the thyroid issues 💔 though she has been going down for a few months I just feel so horrible 💔

I have an in home euthanasia scheduled for my cat a week from tomorrow. I’ve been nonstop reading posts on here and the petloss sub about the process, other people’s similar internal struggles and the advice in the comments but something I just can’t wrap my mind around is how she has these little glimpses of herself and I just feel awful.

On the one hand I’ve seen advice that once the bad days outnumber the good days, it’s time. It’s hard to fully classify some days because they start off one way and end another, and then other days are just.. meh. Not good or bad, but not like her normal at all. Overall, everyday used to be a great day and she had this spark. Now those days are outnumbered for sure, even if the purely horrible days are just now approaching 50%. There are also a lot of meh days that go south or the other way around. But everyday without fail, there’s at least one *moment* where my baby comes out, her usual self, purring or doing something funny. Even if it really is just a moment or two.

It makes me feel like I’m making the wrong choice, mainly because another piece of advice I’ve seen is that when they stop really being themselves, it’s time. I struggle to imagine her not being *herself*, you know? Is that not what people mean when they say that? Will they always be them, down to the very end? Her ears still perk up when she hears plastic, hoping it’s a treat. She only runs over about 10% of the time now, and the rest of the time she’ll slowly amble over or just go back to bed. But she still perks up. She still swats at her toy, even if she doesn’t get up anymore. The worst thing is that she doesn’t cuddle or meow nearly as much as her normal, which was 24/7. But she still purrs sometimes when I pet her, she still puts her paw up to my cheek. I just don’t know. And then every few days she’ll have a full on snuggle sesh that’s exactly like normal and I feel so wrong. And then other days I feel like I need to call and move the appointment sooner because she seems to be suffering.

Another thing people say is that you just know. I feel like I do just know, because when people try to tell me to take her to the vet one last time (something that gives her panic attacks) I get defensive and explain why I won’t do that. But I still feel like I’m in such denial because she’s still my loving baby. She looks at me with these loving eyes. I keep trying to talk to her about it, ask her if she wants me to move it closer or leave it as is, if she’s truly ready, and she won’t look in my eyes during these conversations. Is it because I’m pretty much crying 24/7 these days? I try not to sob, just let the tears fall silently but maybe I’m ruining her last week. I’m trying not to.

I have a lofted bed in my studio apartment, we moved here in March and it was the only way to fit all my stuff. This whole time she’s mainly used her cat tower to get up here, and I got those folding stairs for the other side of the bed that people usually use in garages. I covered them in cute fabric and I use them to get up as well. It’s only been 3 weeks since she finally learned how to use them, and she’s still going up and down both ways now. I was so excited when I saw her run up the stairs 3 weeks ago, and now I feel like I’m taking something from her. How has she declined so fast? Did she just want to show me one last trick? I’m so devastated.

She’s normally at my side 24/7, sleeps with me through the night, but for the past 2 weeks she’s been mainly sticking to my closet floor. I put blankets in there, but today I added floor cushions and pillows because I’m gonna be sleeping in there with her until the time comes. Am I making the right choice? I went through my camera roll and looked at tons of videos and pics from the 2.5 years I’ve had her, and in some ways she’s still herself but in so many ways she isn’t. She used to jump up and look out the window when she heard my car pull up and lock, in all the apartments we’ve lived in. She used to meow nonstop when I walked in the door and roll around like a crazy person, flopping on the bed and somersaulting with happiness. She hasn’t done that in months. I’m so heartbroken.

I’m giving her cheese, and cream cheese, and churu, and her favorite chicken lollipops for cats, I’m brushing her a ton, I’m giving her catnip (though she doesn’t have any reaction to it at all anymore, and I wait a few days between giving it to her so she doesn’t build a tolerance. It was her favorite thing ever). She still shakes her head and meows at the same time- rararararaeowwwww! But she looks so tired and she’s wobbly when she walks and she’s so slow now, things which weren’t true even a month ago.

Please help. I’ve been posting in here a few times because I’m so torn up, I’m so grateful to all of you who respond, it’s helping me a lot. This week is going to be so hard. Luckily my boss is very kind and let me have the next two weeks off, so I can be with my baby.

On Monday I’m going to call the home euthanasia service and schedule it for my cat for next Monday. My mom already had a visit planned and I feel like I can’t do it without her.

This week is agonizing, it already is and i haven’t even made the appointment yet. I had a consultation with them yesterday and ever since then my heart feels like it’s breaking when I look at her. Every time she perks up when she hears the treat bag, or meows at me. In between all of this she looks uncomfortable, I know she is, but I see her devour her favorite treats and it feels like my chest is being ripped open. I feel like I can still see her in there but I know she’s suffering and she just isn’t the same.

I feel like I can’t breathe. I’ve been putting up all my shifts at work for the week and for days I’ve just been laying in bed. Sometimes she snuggles, sometimes she hides in the closet. She used to be a Velcro cat.

This is so, so excruciatingly painful. Just now she started trying to tear open a bag of dog food that I feed the local crows. She used to do this, try to tear open anything that might be food for her, but lost interest over the past few months. But she tried today, and it’s little things like this that make me feel so terrible. Like I’m taking something from her. But then the majority of her days look so uncomfortable, I’m just torn up inside 💔 I feel so guilty looking at her knowing what I’m going to do, especially when she looks up at me purring every now and then, like she used to do constantly. She’s my baby.

I’ve only had her for 2.5 years and it just isn’t fair. I knew she was older but it’s just not fair. She came into my life through crazy circumstances, I wasn’t looking for a pet but as far as I gathered her previous living situation wasn’t great. She was so scared for weeks when I met her. Then she looked up at me like she had never known kindness or love in her life before. It’s not fair that she only gets 2.5 years of unconditional love. I love her so much. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to be awake, it’s really hard to eat, and I still have a week of this before it happens. Please help, I feel so unbearably sick and evil💔

Should I ask the vet about painkillers or steroids for this last week of her life? So it isn’t awful for her as well? I fear the surge of energy it might give her will make it harder for me but I don’t want this to be cruel, the fact that I’m making her wait until my mom is here so I can survive it

Edit: and how do I cope with the fact that I just want to snuggle her 24/7 but most of the day she just wants to be alone in the closet now? She used to be on me 24/7. It feels so wrong to let her be on her own but most of the time now it seems like I’m upsetting her when I sit with her or touch her. She snuggles sometimes but it just feels so wrong to let her be alone during this last week

I got my cat in January of 2024. I was living with an abusive ex boyfriend and another roommate. On a meth bender, he got her off Craigslist. He said she was “3 or 4… no she’s 16… no she’s like 8… I don’t know”. I’ve never known her age for sure. A week later, that roommate disappeared and moved without telling anyone, leaving the cat. I took her in, and thank god I did. She has gotten me through ptsd, and a severe autoimmune flare that almost killed me while I figured out the right medications. In the two and a half years I’ve had her, we have moved 4 times, one hellish living situation after the next. In March of this year, we finally got a place just to ourselves, a studio apartment.

Last year, when I was finally in “remission” from my autoimmune disease, she stopped eating as much. I took her in to the vet last April (for the first time, which I will always beat myself up for. I just couldn’t even get dressed while flaring and going through acute ptsd, and she seemed like the healthiest cat ever). The vet said she had mild kidney issues and a slight heart murmur, to start her on kidney food and get an echo done by the end of the year. The kidney food worked like a charm and she started eating again, seemed healthy and happy. In November of last year I brought her in for an echo and it’s just been a downward spiral since.

Apparently, the heart murmur is not as mild as the initial vet thought, and she has a Gallup rhythm and an enlarged ventricle. We tried amlodipine for two months, and also did a t3 suppression test. Hyperthyroid confirmed. The amlodipine made her stop eating and the t3 test showed thyroid issues. The heart specialist disagreed that she ever had kidney issues, but told the vet not to put her on thyroid meds. Her blood pressure got down to normal but she was too skinny. Tried another heart medication I can’t remember the name of and it made her vomit. Begged them to try the thyroid meds, and they said we needed to re-do all the labs even though it had only been three weeks. I said fuck you guys and did my own research, got her weight back up with weruva phos focused.

In March we moved into this studio apartment. She had been having bad days at the old apartment, every once in a while, and the stress of moving took her about a week to recover from with gabapentin, but then for a month she seemed like the happiest cat ever. Back to her old self, everyday. I chalked it up to being alone, because she hates other people and animals. Still, I made an appointment for a new vet in town on March 31.

At the appointment, she had insane diarrhea on the floor out of stress. The vet agreed that she should start thyroid meds but to give her probiotics first for her stool. She also said she doesn’t think her kidneys are a big issue but that thyroid issues can mask kidney issues. She hadn’t been having diarrhea until that day, but I agreed and gave her probiotics for a few weeks and she seemed happy and normal. Some bad days sprinkled in again, maybe a bit more than normal, but overall her happy self. I called the vet, and during the first week of May she started methimazole transdermal, 1.25mg. Bad, bad, bad. She was apathetic, isolated and having diarrhea again and throwing up on the methimazole. Called the vet again, gave her a couple weeks to get back to normal and started transitioning her on the y/d diet in mid May, and she’s been on fully for the past two weeks. The first week was great, she seemed happy and scarfed it down, she seemed to love it more than any other food I’ve given her.

But the past week has taken a turn. Pretty much every day of the past week she has thrown up everything in her stomach, undigested hours after she eats it. I took away the kibble and just did wet food, thinking she was eating too fast but nothing changed. She’s also been having diarrhea, straining so hard in the litterbox that she throws up, and then going to poop on my couch or the carpet or something.

These episodes will leave her in a horrible state for hours after, and she’s gotten quite bony. But then each day she’ll perk up and be happy, it’s the most intense up and down I’ve seen so far.

Today I got a really bad feeling, after having heart to hearts with her. Over the past few months she’s been much less cuddly as well, even on good days. For the first two years she was literally attached to me like Velcro, always at my side or on me, and now she does this rarely. She’ll sit next to me or off by herself. I told her that if it’s time, if she thinks it’s time to go, that I need her to snuggle with me more, at least, just so I can have a few more good snuggle sessions.

Ever since I said that to her she’s been sleeping on me through the night, and in the closet during the day, lethargic and upset. Today is when she was straining so hard, just letting out little drops of wet stool and then puking. I had an appointment for her on July 10 to see how the y/d food is working for her thyroid but I called and moved that to this coming Monday. But then I just started to sob, I hate seeing her like this, so I had a phone consultation with an at home euthanasia service to get a quote. I feel sick and I’ve been sobbing for days. I’ve really been panicking about her behavior off and on for months now, and I’m starting to feel like it’s cruel to keep her here but then she’ll have such a great day or such a great week that I feel cruel even thinking about ending it.

Another weird thing, if you believe in any of this stuff- I was thrifting about a month ago and came across a red letter bible. I’m not religious, my parents raised me very hippie and spiritual, but my grandma, who I loved, was a red letter Christian (the bible text is written in red if Jesus said it). I got it and brought it home, and my cat was purring and sitting in my lap and I said to her, “ok, I’m going to flip to a random page and whichever verse I see first is what you, or Jesus, or I don’t know who is trying to tell me”.

I flipped to the page from the last supper, where Jesus said “it is my time to go now” or something, as well as some verse about “how could you criticize this woman, for she has done everything she could for me”. I started sobbing. I don’t know if that’s a sign. I don’t want to let her go, she has kept me from completely losing it these past few years. I love her so so so much. I can’t even think about taking her life but watching her is so hard. I feel sick, please help me decide what to do. She hates the vet so much, if it’s time I don’t even want to put her through another appointment, I just want her to be here and comfortable. Thank you

Hi guys,
I’ve posted here a few times. The crows in my town have become dear friends over the past year. Even through a move, a few followed me after winter and set up camp by my new place and some others did so by my work. the others are all around town but they fly to my car wherever I am. I love them.

Yesterday before I went to work I noticed that a fledgling was sitting by my car in the grass. This is where I normally feed them, on top of my car. It saw me get close and tried to get away but it was hopping and limping and dragging a wing. On my way to work I called several potential options for help, one rehabber about 30 miles away finally helped me out and we texted back and forth. I sent pics of the bird and she said they can’t come here but I could try to capture the bird and bring it to them to rehab.

When I got off work, the crow had made its way across the grass over to a bush by the tree the parents nest in. I tried to get a closer look but the mom was shouting at me. I went inside and boiled them some eggs and put them on my car, debated all night about what to do about/for the bird. On the one hand I didn’t want to take the crows mourning process away if they euthanized him but if he could be helped I felt horrible not trying. I was crossing my fingers that it was his leg and not his wing and planned to check this morning and decide.

Well, a few hours ago around 7, the crows were outside my apartment window screaming bloody murder. I came outside and saw a raccoon, blood, and feathers. I was so stunned I just stood there staring at the raccoon, hoping it wasn’t my bird. The crows were going insane. I started throwing pinecones at the raccoon out of anger and it ran away. The baby crow is in a bunch of pieces all over the yard outside my apartment. It seems the initial attack happened on the sidewalk, based on the blood.

I don’t know how the baby got over here so injured. The bush I last saw it disappear under is across the street (my parking spot is next to a field where the bush is, across the street). So either the raccoon found it, dragged it, and then ate it or it got here itself. All the crows know which unit is mine because they always go crazy when i open my blinds for the day because they know I’ll feed them soon.

I cried on my steps for about half an hour and threw pinecones at the raccoon any time it tried to come back to finish the remains. I want the birds to be able to grieve. They’ve been cawing nonstop. I’ve been crying nonstop, I’m so sad. I’m so, so sad. I really hope they don’t think it’s my fault because they saw me come out. I didn’t touch the remains. I did go pick some wildflowers in the field, made a little bouquet and tied it off with grass and then put another egg on top of my car with the flowers. I don’t know what to do. I’m so sad. I think my neighbors think I’m batshit crazy though, ha.

💔