Bailey died this morning →[More:]
I had a call this morning from the vet to say that Bailey was having difficulty breathing and she was much worse than yesterday. Where her body is destroying red blood cells, this affects breathing because it's the haemoglobin in the red cells that carries oxygen in the bloodstream, so she was fighting for breath, like a constant asthma attack. The steroids she'd been given were not stopping the destruction of both red and white cells. The vet said that he did not think there was anything more they could do for her except put her to sleep.

I asked if I could bring Lucy with me, and he said that would be fine, so before the vet opened for morning clinic, I took Lucy and we had a private room with Bailey where we spent some time together. Bailey was much, much sicker than yesterday. She was barely able to lift her head to look at me or Lucy. After we had had some time, the vet came in and we said goodbye to Bailey. Lucy lay next to Bailey when she went off to sleep. It was very quick and very peaceful.

I feel numb right now, I know the tears will come later. She was such a sweet, funny cat, not very bright (most tabbies are a bit dim, in my experience) but she was her own unique personality. Every night when I was reading in bed she would drag my hand off the book so I could scritch all around her face. I was not allowed to read until she decided she'd had enough scritching!

Lucy seems much calmer now, she's not going from room to room pacing around looking for her mum and meowing for her. I took a few photos, last ones of them together. Poor, poor Bailey, she was really in a bad way. I am just thankful that she wasn't ill and suffering for months, this illness came on and was over in just a few days, since last Wednesday.

She is now out of pain. I could tell at once this morning how much worse she was than yesterday and I knew from reading about her illness on the internet that the chances of her pulling through this were practically non-existent.

It's one of the things that comes with being a pet owner, though, knowing when the time has come to do right by our animals, but knowing I've done the right thing doesn't make it any easier.