Little Cosa was put out of her pain yesterday. →[More:] It had been a hard day. Although she was becoming more and more alert and her personality was starting to show again, her alertness was alerting *me* to the fact that she was in a great deal of pain. She had no strength at all in her hind legs. I had to help her stand in the litterbox, as her legs were just giving out underneath her.

The doctor prescribed an appetite stimulant, which I managed to get down her throat yesterday on the second try. (The first attempt was pretty grim. She foamed and frothed for about 15 minutes after a tiny bit of it dissolved on her tongue.) She did manage to eat some turkey after the pill kicked in, but she threw it all up about 20 minutes later.

I took her to the hospital one last time to see if they could come up with any other course of action. There was nothing to do, they said, but wait it out. And they didn't know how long -- days, weeks, months. There just was no answer.

Knowing that she was in pain, and was frustrated, and that we were going to be waiting an undetermined period of time in hopes of realizing an undetermined (and possibly negative) outcome, I decided it would be best just to end her pain. I had no power to fix the problems, or to even make them less unpleasant while they hopefully fixed themselves. I had the power, though, to stop the pain. And that's what I chose to do.

It was very hard, especially since she'd started being more herself. She'd look at me and squeak -- her way of communicating. I know that none of what she was saying was positive, though. She didn't understand what was going on, and she didn't like it.

The end was very quick and painless. (I was surprised at how fast the process was, actually. It took less than a minute.) (Oh, and it was painless except for the fact that the room where they took us -- which was all mood lighting and comfy couches -- FREAKED HER THE FUCK OUT. There were some bad kitty vibes in that room. She tried to crawl into the sleeve of my coat while we were sitting in there waiting for the doctor.)

So Cosa's not in pain anymore, which is good. She was never going to have the life she had before, and that would have been very sad and frustrating for all of us. I'm ninety percent sure that it was the right decision; the other ten percent is really nagging at me.

I'm glad she's no longer suffering. The hard part now is going to be getting used to the fact that she's not going to slink in here, jump up on the desk, and stare at me while I type. I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye, and I swear I never knew how many sounds there are in the world that sound like the standard Cosa squeak.

I'll miss the little freak, but I know she had a pretty kick-ass life.

Thanks for all your good thoughts. Tell your pets you love them today.