Once there were two, and then one.
Our sweet Briana-na, feisty tortie-tabby extraordinaire, died on June 7 at the age of 17. That’s eighty-plus in human years. I’m still grieving. It’s hard to watch a beloved pet get old and infirm, but it is torture when you have to play God and decide that giving her mercy is preferable to letting her suffer one more day.
She was so brave. She lived with arthritis, and then hyperthyroidism and chronic renal failure. Despite her grouchy ways, she was so patient as I gave her thyroid pills, gave her antibiotics for a broken canine tooth, monitored her fluid intake, fed (and then force-fed) her special foods, gave her medicine twice daily for stomach and mouth ulcers, and cleaned up after her at 3 am when the vomiting became continuous or she lacked the strength to get into her litter box in time. I marvel at the way she grumbled but didn’t fight me as I stuck her with needles to pour Ringer’s solution into a thirsty body that gradually became, despite our best efforts, a shrunken, frail shell of her formerly cobby, muscular self. Continued…