It’s been 3 days since I had to put my cat, Norman, to sleep. There have been very few times in my life that I’ve been this low. The guilt I feel about his passing is overwhelming. I’ve lost family, friends, relationships, dealt with personal struggles, whatever. But losing Norman feels like something I can’t recover from. I don’t know if this sounds silly or not but maybe someone can relate. He was always there for me. A constant in my life. It was always me and him. I thought of him as my baby. And now he’s gone and I don’t think I’ll ever feel okay again.

I feel responsible for his death. I was away from home for 6 days while my mom was taking care of him. On the night I came home, I noticed he had a swollen jaw. He wouldn’t let me look inside his mouth, but I had planned to take make a regular vet appointment for the following week, since it was the weekend. He was eating and drinking and using the bathroom normally. The following morning I noticed more swelling and difficulty eating so I took him to the emergency vet. They needed to anesthetize him before looking inside his mouth, and before they could do that, they had to do blood work. Well his labs showed a number of problems. Diabetes, kidney failure, and severe anemia and dehydration because of his diagnoses. The doctor did not feel comfortable putting him under to check his jaw. So I had to make a choice. I could try and treat all his issues but they were not completely fixable. According to the doctor, It would make him feel better for a bit, but not enough to make a huge change, and it would be extremely costly with multiple ongoing medications. And all of this was not accounting for his jaw issue.

I made the decision to put him to sleep. After his passing, the doctor looked inside his mouth and let me know it was a fracture, likely from being weak and falling. And I know it was best to not let him suffer. But I still can’t help but also feel immeasurable guilt. I feel like I should’ve known he was so sick and taken him a long time ago. I thought he was losing weight and getting a little weaker because of his old age. I feel responsible. Even while at the vet, he was purring and alert and oriented, walking around and sitting on my lap. Did I make the wrong choice? Shouldn’t I have done everything I could first, like choosing the medication route, before resorting to euthanasia? I guess this is just a rant and I’m not really even sure what I’m looking for, but I’m so heartbroken and lost. These past couple days I’ve had to act normal because I’m in a patient-facing role and not allowed time off. But I get home and I can’t do anything but curl up and sob. I replay our last moments together in my head over and over. I know it’s not healthy but I feel like I’m drowning. I miss him more than I’ve ever missed anything in the whole world.