*sigh*

This was a sh!tty weekend.

Friday started out OK...I turned in the first half of the current freelance hell I'm in, and the supervisor liked what I did. Yay!

I then tried to make lunch plans to no avail. Boo! That came back to bite me very severely in the @$$ later in the afternoon.

I came home, put the murdersickle away, and went to tend to the Angriest Cat in the World. As you know, she was diagnosed with lymphoma late last year. As you also know, her eating habits as of late have been abysmal. As of this past week, she wasn't herself at all.

She stopped growling at the diabetic fatass cat.

She stopped being able to jump up to my computer table to lay on top of my computer monitor.

She stopped eating.

She stopped using the litter box.

She stopped waking us up early in the morning to be fed.

She stopped curling up in a ball in my lap.

She stopped sleeping next to my head on my pillow at night.

She stopped purring.

She stopped sleeping.

She stopped walking around with such force that I could hear her little feet stomping on the hardwood floors.

Basically, all she's been doing for the past week has been lying in one of two spots in the back of the house, keeping to herself. Not sleeping, not doing much of anything except lying uncomfortably. She'd let me pick her up and carry her to the kitchen to give her medication and try to feed her. She'd let herself be put on the bed. She'd let herself be placed in the den. However, she didn't stick around for any of that for very long, and she'd stumble back to her semi-hiding place.

So I figured it's off to the vet she goes.

I pack her up with little resistance(a big red flag right there)and cart her off to the vet. She meows plaintively a couple of times in the waiting room, but she's suprisingly quiet otherwise. We wait for about 45 minutes in the waiting room and then go in for her exam. The vet checks her out, weighs her (4 lbs, 4 oz...skin and bones), and takes her temperature. He feels around her abdomen and notices that one kidney is way bigger than the other(one kidney has probably shut down functions altogether), and there's a large mass in her intestinal area. The same area where the lymphoma started.

There's nothing that can be done for her.

Being the strong, stoic individual I am, I do what any badass would do.

I fainted dead away in the examining room.

I scared the bejeezus out of the vet staff, but they've dealt with fainting people before and had me sitting up with a cup of water quickly after I came to. I have one helluva goosegg on the back of my noggin as a result though. Hurts like hell, too. This was the only time I heard the cat complain, as the staff had to try to put her back in her carrying case. She doesn't like the vet, to put it mildly. When she was in full force, she'd make the Tasmanian Devil look like a fluffy baby chick. Her ferocity was legend. Not this time. When I sat up, I saw her scowling at me through the bars of her case, as if to say, Good going, moron!

I blame the fainting on my not eating lunch. I should've known better. It's not like I didn't know what the outcome would be for the cat. It shouldn't have been the shock that it was. Argh.

Anyway, the vet gave her a vitamin B shot and some general fluids since she was so dehydrated. They sent her home with me, saying that if there' s no improvement Friday night, to bring her back in Saturday.

No improvement.

So Saturday was The Day. The Day that I had to put my first cat to sleep.

I've been with my sister when she had to put one of her cats to sleep. It's an awful experience. It's doubly awful when one goes back to the place where they fainted the day before to do it. Ugh!

I'm very lucky in that my sister returned the favor and was with me and the husband when we took the Angriest Cat in the World back to the vet in the late afternoon. I've been a big crybaby since Friday. I haven't been this sad in an incredibly long time. To be responsible for taking away the doomed life of a pet that's been in my care for her entire life hit me very very hard.

She went peacefully.

It was the right thing to do. It was a painful thing to do, and I haven't slept right for days. My eyes hurt from crying. My back hurts from tossing and turning in bed.

But she went peacefully.

And it was the right thing to do.

I'm still miserable for now. I cleaned up her food area and threw out her litter box. Cried while I did it. I cried when I came home from the vet's and fed the two remaining cats, because I wasn't feeding three cats.

But she needed to go peacefully when she did, and I just have to keep telling myself that.

She was an incredibly ill-tempered cat. But she was my incredibly ill-tempered cat, and I miss her horribly.