Otter is doing better! The doctor found out that his blood tests were fairly good, after a week out of the hospital, and then including his blood sugars! As follow up, she instructed me to start feeding him the kidney support food, instead of the diabetic support food and, what do you know he started eating again! And he has energy, he's even peeing more reliably in the cat box, he's clambring back up on the furniture, he's bothering us gently when he wants to eat. It is such a f****** relief.
It was probably something I needed to do. Like, I'm not glad that I had that time of despair, and several days of anguish and mourning him before he even died.
But I'm so good at denial. I'm so good at denial that I had somehow convinced myself that I would never have to deal with them dying. That things would always be the same. That they would always be there for me. And then its simply not the case. âšī¸
I hope I didn't traumatize any of y'all in expressing my grief and worry and despair. And while I'm glad that my Otter is better, I needed to break my disbelief, I needed to stop denying that this is something that *will*, will eventually happen, and I need to be able to deal with it without completely falling to pieces. There will be jobs to do, when they do finally pass. There will be all of the everyday jobs, on top of the additional "now I have to deal with a funeral type arrangements".
I let myself feel all the feelings. Let myself be open to the feelings that are natural when you suffer a loss of someone that you love. And this is huge, for me.
This week (April 28th) is the 25th anniversary of my dad's passing. And I couldn't grieve him for the most part of a decade. I spent 9 years angry at him for everything that he didn't do for us, for himself. It took me 9 years to get out of the anger stage of grief and into The sadness and the other parts.
The fact that I can actually grieve like a healthy person, that's a really good sign for me. And now, while I know it's going to wreck me, I have learned enough about what you can do when a beloved pet dies, and I'm not afraid of that anymore. I know what I will need to do and I will be able to handle it even if I am an emotional wreck.
So yeah. I learned a thing or two. And he's still with us, and I'm still taking care of him. And I'm glad he's still around, and so is my husband.
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