This is Shrink. Wednesday morning she seemed fine. Wednesday evening she seemed lazy. Yesterday (Thursday) morning she seemed sick. Thursday night, she was gone.
Wow. Was that tough. Shrink was essentially my Big Girl’s pet. She slept with her every night. The Big Girl noticed Shrink’s behavior on Wednesday and she helped her Daddy load Shrink up for the vet Thursday morning. So, when I spoke with the vet around 2 Thursday afternoon, I knew we were in for a tough afternoon.
I had promised that we would do our best to tell Shrink “bye” if she were really sick. (I’m telling you this happened so quick we just were not prepared.) When I spoke to the vet he wasn’t even sure that she would be alive when we got there after school.
Basically, Shrink had developed diabetes since her last check -up (January). I hadn’t noticed anything different, but with 2 cats, it’s tough to tell who’s eating, who’s drinking, and who’s not. Well, it appears that her kidneys failed her Wednesday and by Thursday morning she was toxic. The doctor told us it would take a “miracle from God” and while I know God can and does, I also understood.
So, after school we dropped our friends off and I told the BG we were meeting her Daddy at the vet. You could watch the emotions flood across her face. Kids aren’t dumb, and she knew what that meant. When we got there, Shrink was in a coma, but the kids petted her and talked to her. I nearly lost it (no, I did lose it) when the Little Man asked me to sing Shrink “that song you sing to me when I’m sad.”
We cried, hugged Shrink, and came back home, leaving her in the care of the vet.
I’m amazed by the courage of my kids. I didn’t know what to expect from them, but BG really gets it. She’s sad and doesn’t want to talk about Shrink, but she came home and looked for Doc (cat #2) and then drew lots of pictures of Shrink. The LM has moved on with life, but I expected nothing else from a 3 year old.
I have to admit, I’m a little sad too. It hurts to watch your child’s heart break. It feels bad when you realize you have so few pictures of their favorite pet because you’ve been “too busy” to snap lots of fun pictures. But thankfully, our children are healthy and we are blessed. We will miss that cat.