Saying Goodbye

Last night I took Thomas to the vet because he wasn't himself. He wasn't eating or talking or even going upstairs. I was thinking maybe he was just a little backed up in his digestion system, and while he was it, wasn't from anything that was easily fixed.

He had a large mass attached to his intestines and probably a few other organs. He warned me right away that given Thomas's age - 16 that he has seen a lot of these cases and that they end up usually right back where I was right then. He wanted to take some x-rays to ensure he could confirm what he was thinking and that it wasn't just an enlarged liver or some kind of thyroid issue. It was what he thought and he told me if Thomas was 8-9 then he'd recommend going through the whole process of blood work, ultrasound and surgery, but given his age there was no guarantee and not a very good outlook for even surviving the surgery - assuming the mass ( of cancer) was even operable. He wasn't optomistic that surgery was even an option.

So I did the only thing that seemed to be humane for him. I scratched and petted him while they put him to sleep. He purred from the second we arrived in the vet's office until he took his last breathe, but I wasn't going to leave him alone and let strangers be there for his last moment.

It's so very sad and I will very much miss him.