Just needed to be heard for a little while

Pyxis

lostinrates wrote: »

What a wonderful looking dog.

Grief is so hard. People often cannot understand how we grieve for them and how irreplaceable individuals are. We've said good bye to too many ( partly because of the short life span of big dogs and partly because we have had so many) and its always nightmarish. Not having had only pets I think the others force you through a bit more.

I still miss my dogs, and they've been dead for 13 and 6 years respectively. They both lived well into their teens, so I'd had them a very long time, through thick and thin. When the first dog died, I still had the other, and that was a huge help. However, when the second went, that was it, alone.

I will have another dog, but I'm out so much at the moment, that it wouldn't be right.
Even after 6 years, I still really miss being greeted when I walk into the house.
I really miss the pad of paws following me upstairs when it's time for bed.
I really miss the head plonked on my knee, and the big brown eyes looking up at me, saying "stroke, please, mum!"

jobbingmusician

I miss my cats as well. MrJM won't have another because he says it hurts too much when they die, but the ONLY thing (apart from time) which I know makes the grief easier is the love of a new pet.

dibuzz

I miss putting my hand on the laptop and her little nose nudging it up so I will cuddle her instead.

Waves_and_Smiles

Good Morning all!

I can talk for ages about my kitty who died almost 8 years ago now. I have had a lot of cats but she was special. She was a feral caught by a friend after he found her with her dead mother. Her mother had been poisoned (horrid people!) along with a lot of other feral cats who were living in an abandoned house. She was very ill when I got her, although she hadn't been poisoned herself she had ingested poisoned milk which caused huge kidney problems in her life, had mites and fleas, an ear infection and was only 4 weeks old. The vet said she wouldn't live but I had to give her a chance so I got all of her medication and fed her with an eye dropper and then syringe and she made it. She was very feral indeed for a while but she turned into the most loving pet I had ever had, she was literally never away from me and would follow me around the house. She also never grew beyond the size of a 6 month old and had tiny kidneys which eventually failed when she was 13.

She would sit by an open window but never leave the house, she was a house cat purely by choice. Everyone would comment how attached to me she was, she used to sleep on my pillow with her body pressed against my head for years and always lay against my chest when I was awake. If I cried she would cry and sit on my lap and touch my tears, I learnt to try to avoid being upset in front of her because it would upset her so much. She kept a little of her feral instinct in that she didn't trust people. She would tolerate WaSp but it was only me who could touch her, and I could put her in any position including upside down like a baby and she would fall asleep in my arms.

When her kidneys failed at 13 I learnt to give her dialysis at home and it is the only time I have been debt in my life, I would have got any amount of loans to keep her with me. I was there when she died, holding her in my arms at the vets.

I have had pets since but there will never ever be another her.

Talking of grief WaSp found her passing really hard. I went alone to the vets because he couldn't bear to be there to say goodbye. He went to work straight afterwards and didn't come home that night. Eventually he called me at 5am, on a train crying his eyes out. He had walked around all night crying and asked me over and over why he felt that way? He had never felt it for any other pet.

I still cry for her now all these years later. She is completely irreplaceable to me.

Pyxis

All pets are special,WaS, but some really, really get to you.

I've had lots of hamsters over the years, well about 4, but one really touched me. She was so, so friendly and gentle. I really loved her!

And 6 cats, too, one of which was very, very, very special. All but two were killed by cars, strange, as I lived in a very quiet street. That made it worse, because they were all young.

And each time the pain was unbearable, but I've never ever said I wouldn't have another because of the pain of losing them. This is because the joy they give, over so many years, more than outweighs that terrible grief when they go.

And WaS, for your kitty to live 13 years when she lost her mum at 4weeks, had a disease-ridden start in life, plus those severe health problems, well, that just shows what a brilliant nurse and cat-mum you are! :T :T Your kitty had 13 wonderful years after a dreadful start, and it was all down to you!

Waves_and_Smiles

I was very lucky when her kidneys first failed as there was a Californian vet on a placement in the surgery. In this country we rarely give dialysis to cats, it is more common in America. But she said to me it is going to cost you a lot and most vets won't understand why you are doing it but if you are brave enough I can teach you to give her dialysis at home. It means injecting her everyday and keeping her on an IV for 10 minutes but she will feel much better for the rest of the day and it will buy you a year. I jumped at it and I knew my kitty would let me do it because she trusted me with everything.

So unlike a lot of cats with kidney failure she had a very good last year, she had a totally normal and pain-free life due to the dialysis and just as I thought cooperated with me injecting her and sitting still for fluids every day. All in all it cost me £1000 in medication, fluid bags and equipment a month plus one dialysis at the vets which I got partly from charities and a lot from debt but I would do it again in a heart beat. She had almost no symptoms at all and unlike other cats with it had almost no other medication because we were able to flush her kidneys everyday. I am so thankful to that vet for letting me try it and it did indeed buy another year.

Funny you should mention hamsters Pyxis. I won't get another because I can't replace my little boy who died at Christmas at 28 months. I chose him because he was the only baby in the shop sleeping on his back with his legs in the air, looking dead to be honest. He slept like that for all of his life, often in the middle of the cage floor. He was never nocturnal, he went to bed at night like a human. He didn't like vegetables so I would have to hide them in baby food and he loved toast. He would never use a wheel to run in and used to try to nest in my hair. He never once bit me and would fall asleep in my lap and loved his tummy stroked. There will never be another him either and I don't really want another now, I want him.

Pyxis

Waves_and_Smiles wrote: »

Funny you should mention hamsters Pyxis. I won't get another because I can't replace my little boy who died at Christmas at 28 months. I chose him because he was the only baby in the shop sleeping on his back with his legs in the air, looking dead to be honest. He slept like that for all of his life, often in the middle of the cage floor. He was never nocturnal, he went to bed at night like a human. He didn't like vegetables so I would have to hide them in baby food and he loved toast. He would never use a wheel to run in and used to try to nest in my hair. He never once bit me and would fall asleep in my lap and loved his tummy stroked. There will never be another him either and I don't really want another now, I want him.

:T :T oh WaS, I would SO have picked him, too! And wouldn't he fit it so well on this thread, with all us oddballs?

I love oddballs. One of my cats was an oddball! My first dog was 'peace, love, man!' And the second was ' gimme, gimme, I want it, and I want it, NOW!' (P.s. She never got it, now, she got it when I said she could have it, and turned into a wonderful dog, but she was very odd for her first 7 or 8 years!)

Waves_and_Smiles

Hahahahaha! I love odd pets! I chose my little hamster purely because he looked so odd in the shop and he was different all of his life. I had, had 2 hamsters previously and none were like him, he was completely unique. He was very healthy all of his life too despite his hatred of anything healthy to eat and exercise and eventually died an old man curled up in his sleep. If I offered him vegetables he would just sniff them and walk away so I used to hide them mostly in baby rice pudding which he loved, he'd grab anything like toast or plain cake though! He also had very loud dreams. He was silent while awake but would hiss and squeak while he was asleep, and he was impossible to wake up and when he did he would stagger around the cage with eyes half shut for 5 minutes while he got his bearings. Even animals as small as hamsters are very individual with their own personalities!

Oh and funny story. When my carer was new she came into get me out of bed and sat solemnly down and told me he had died. He hadn't moved when she came in and all she saw was a hamster in the open, laying on his back unconscious on the sawdust. Luckily I realised what happened and burst out laughing and had to explain that was how he slept daily!

Waves_and_Smiles

In other news I am really struggling with this weeks Bioethics class. It covers automony with mental health disabilities and it is very close to home. Considering Schizophrenia is seen to be the big one a lot of the emphasis is on that with interviews with sufferers. I am finding these extremely hard to watch and am having to turn off every 10 minutes.

I am not quite sure why it is so hard, a lot of the problem is that I can relate to the people so well. It is showing me how much of text book case I am, although fortunately I am far more high-functioning than a lot of people. Even the memory problems are shown with people forgetting tiny things as I do along with seeing auras around people and plants as I do when psychotic. I am finding it difficult to see it laid out in front of me and realising that I share so many of the same symptoms, kind of like there is a neon sign flashing at me saying "You are Schizophrenic!" I already know that so I am unsure why this hurts so much...

jobbingmusician

I think it must be that you are still thinking of mental illness as 'other', WaS. Two things:

1. We are all mentally ill sometimes (Louis Appleby) - and I think we all have MH 'types'

2. Mental illness is a NORMAL, HEALTHY response to intolerable life conditions. There is a lot of stuff written about PTSD of course, but also about other MH problems that people have developed after periods of prolonged stress. Very sadly, you were subject to dreadful abuse at the most vulnerable period of your life - when you were a child. You still cope well, and in the last 2 or 3 weeks you have opened the door for the first time, and cooked cupcakes. You are actually making tremendous progress!