Mama Mia 2018 the year of LOSS

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Sometimes you feel like life has just punched you in the gut.

It's already been a very trying year. Loss seems to be the legacy 2018 desires.

I'd been feeling like I was in a good place. The one good loss was that I've just recently lost 28 pounds in about 40 days by doing a keto/low carb type diet. Mentally I'd processed the previous issues and was beginning to comprehend and absorb the silver linings. I was free from some things and better prepared to meet the needs of other things.

But that small ache that persists told me the impending doom that's known me forever still had something for me this year.

So with just 21 days left in the calendar year, a normal morning of get up, weigh myself and send in my report via some new gadgets and an app from the VA hospital weight loss program, fire up the fireplace to knock the chill off, turn on the coffee maker, prep Anita's tea, feed the cats their daily wet food which they're always anxiously awaiting, pour coffee, take medications, have a seat and proceed to check emails, social media, watch the news and debate breakfast or exercise first.

All seemed quite normal. Then....

Mia let out one of those familiar cat low and slow morning meows, a yowl. The other cats went on high alert. Anita came out of the bedroom and I was on my way towards the alarm. Mia was in the litter box. She came out, the other cats gave her a sniff and all seemed okay. False alarm.

Then Mia did it again. She's done this over the eight years we've had her. She's 12 years old now. It used to indicate she was about to have a seizure. Those have been few and far between this past year since we stopped putting the flea control stuff on her.

Lately she's made this mew when about to yack up a hair ball or just spit up her food.

She walked a bit, then just settled into a crouch and started the yowling again. I prepared with a blanket to cover her in case she was having a seizure to prevent her from injuring herself. Poor thing would run and bounce off things like a pinball and then lay in a heap having a grand mal seizure. She'd come out of those, re familiarize herself with the house, eat and then want some attention.

This time she wasn't happy about the blanket so I took it off her and she walked into the bedroom, crouched again and was panting.

Shit.... I've seen this before. Our Mr Zeepers had just passed away last September due to a condition called Saddle Thrombus which has the symptoms Mia was displaying.

Mia wobbled a bit when she attempted to walk again and she was still yowling and was having obvious breathing issues. I was thinking a heart attack. I thought I was going to have to do CPR on her. I put Anita's bi-Pap mask on her to help force some air but Mia didn't like it so I just grabbed my wallet and keys, put her in a pet carrier and headed for the vet hoping she'd survive the 25-30 minute trip.

She weakened as we traveled, I kept calling her name. She was weakening and becoming unresponsive. I called again and again. She tried with all she had to crawl to the cage door so I could touch her, her meow was getting weaker.

We made it right when they opened. The tech felt her feet, they were cold. I noticed her gums were blue. They took her back for an x-ray... what seemed like forever they came and told me she was dying, due to the same thing that took Mr Zeepers. With him it was on a Friday night and we googled his symptoms and took him outside and mercifully put him down.

I thought I could do something to save Mia. She gave it all she had to survive. I'm afraid I let her suffer more than she should have endured. Hope is not always a great thing.

We had Scarlett, our wonderful black Labrador euthanized when she could have lived longer but the quality of her life was not worth extending. I felt it was the right decision. I felt putting Mr Zeepers down was the right decision. It saved him pain. They both lived great lives. Miss Kitty Kitty was a shocker in that she had shallow breathing one day and I took her to the vet figuring we'd get some antibiotics and be on our way home. They x-rayed her and 3/4's of her chest cavity was filled with something, She would not survive. It too was a Friday and lab results would not be back until Monday and the vet said she would not survive until then. So Kitty Kitty was euthanized mercifully on the spot.

The losses have been piling up in less than two years, we've lost three beloved feline pets and one best ever canine best friend.

I feel they all loved me and showed their appreciation in their unique ways. I loved them with a heart that now feels an emptiness in their spaces.

It was about the time of Anita's Myasthenia Gravis diagnosis that I felt Mama wasn't going to make it through to the end of the year. To prepare myself and feeling it would free some time and attention to caring for Anita and meet the upcoming needs of her aging parents.

But it was Mia. 

I didn't see this one coming and its been that way with all three cats. I'd always been a dog person before I met Anita. Dog's age like people and you know they're closing in on the end of their lives.

Cat's seem to have a different course of action. That's my lesson.

Love em while you got em. Every last thing. Be appreciative. Cherish all of it. Process and grow.

 ❤ RIP MIA ❤

❤❤ Until we meet at the Rainbow Bridge ❤❤

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