RIP Yoda

 Yoda had been suffering for almost a year now. I wrote a blog about it a while back, but here's a recap. I accidentally bought him the wrong food last November and that's when the vomiting started. He's never really had long stretches without vomiting since then, even though he was only on that food for about a week. He got a bladder infection after that and that has been an even bigger problem than the vomiting. He was on antibiotics three times to help it. This last time, the vet also recommended some food for him to help with UTIs. Ironically, that was the type of food I had bought him last year by mistake. He seemed to like it at first, but last week he slowly stopped eating it, and everything else. I didn't notice that as much as I noticed that fact that he was getting pretty skinny and bony. I felt bad giving him his medicine because he seemed so helpless. On Sunday, I knew he was going to die soon. I had some good moments with him, which, given my busy life right now have not been very often. Sunday evening I let him outside because that was his favorite thing to do. He just lay there and enjoyed the nice weather. Suddenly, we noticed that he caught something, so we thought maybe he wasn't too far gone after all! Monday he was back to suffering. I called the vet and she said to stop giving him the meds since he had probably lost his appetite because of it.

Yesterday I taught Erik's first day of preschool! That morning, Yoda had not eaten what was out from the night before, so I gave him a small amount of his old favorite canned food, which he threw back up. Victoria went to school concerned for him. In the middle of preschool I looked at Yoda in his corner and thought he was dead. His eyes were glassy. His fur stuck up in weird places because he was so bony. After looking closer, I saw that he was breathing still and he responded to me when I pet him. I snuck in some love to him throughout the preschool. He didn't eat anything the rest of the day, but did finally change positions. We took him to the vet last night. The last few times his kidneys were tested he just a little above normal, but yesterday the tests yielded the results that he definitely had kidney disease. He was only 6.7 pounds yesterday, almost a pound less than a couple of months ago. He was once a 13 pound cat! They gave him some fluids and told us to feed him whatever he would eat just to make him comfortable. We knew he was going to die soon, but we weren't sure if we should try to make him suffer a little less before he died or not. We gave him tuna last night which he ate well.

This morning, he didn't look well still. I told my kids to say goodbye before they went to school, in case he was gone before they came home. I called Jason and told him I couldn't let Yoda suffer anymore. The vet let me come right in. Now he is happy again!

A recent, favorite place of his to sit.

He enjoyed this cupboard over the summer when all the toys were dumped out.