I need to vent today. All of our stories are very unique to each person, however they nearly all end up on the same path - - dialysis, transplant, ect.
So for the sake of my keyboard, lol I'm going to skip the beginning details of this story and flash to the part where I've worked my ass off to become listed and I shit you not, THE DAY I got listed, I found out my cat was very sick. While my Mother and I were at my doctors apt, my 2 years younger brother and father were at the vets finding out that the cat we've had for 14+ years was dying of none other than kidney fucking failure. Yeah...
When my mother and I made it home, that's when my brother broke the news to us. As soon as he said it, I saw it. I saw all the symptoms there and I just couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. I felt my heart just breaking, knowing what he's - - Lionel- - going through. Over the last year there had been signs the whole time and none of us saw it.
Now this is where the venting starts. We are all adults in this household; we've all had to sacrifice this and that over the last 2 years of Covid Hell on top of me having to move in with my family because I went stage 5 quickly, right. Adding on the to the stress of my diabetes that now I really, REALLY can't get sick because I'll either die or the virus would hurt my heart and ruin my chances of getting on the transplant list or whatever scary dilemma you want to hyperfixate on. I thought because of all of this vast knowledge of system balances, what too much liquid on does to ones heart, the fatigue, the change of appetite - - I though we had learned together as a family in the last year, that the best, most humane and quite frankly, simplest, action to take for our Lionel, would be to put him down. Especially since the vet gave him 1-3 months left to live.
This was not the case.
We had already waited too long to take him to the vet to begin with but for some damned reason I was the only ones in the household who wanted to euthanize him. I was the advocating that his last 14 years were wonderfully adventurous and that he should not have to wait a few weeks more to just die slowly. I wrote a note in the middle of the night begging my family to see it from his point of view, shit, from My point of view because I knew what was coming. Just like you guys know whats coming. That fatigue, that ache, that hunger that you can't meet because nothing tastes how you want it to or how you remember it tasting. That feeling of dread when you have to get up and go to the bathroom to throw up but there's nothing there to throw up because you haven't been able to eat. That feeling of too much liquid being on and how that weight just crushes your legs, your chest, your heart. It's miserable. That feeling of being not yourself, but not knowing why. Then one day the toxins will build up too much and the organs will start failing and by that time his heart will go out ... The vet even gave us Mirataz or mirtazapine. I don't know if any of you are familiar with this drug for humans, but it has many attributes to it. some of which are increased mood, appetite, and sedation. As a Certified Pharmacy Technician, I've dispensed this drug for several of my cancer patients to make life - - palatable.
Now tell me why my Lionel had to wait 16 more days before the rest of my family finally agreed to put him down!? He was so sick and my family just kept saying "Well he doesn't look like he's in painnn. He's still eating and drinkinggg. He kinda played toadyyy " <insert huge fucking eyes coupled with severe disbelief> Finally, it happened; urinary incontinences. My poor Lionel had finally became "sick enough" for my family to realize that it was fucking time to let him go - - that it HAD been all along.
So we did. </3
Now, after reading that, this is what scares me most - - Maybe they don't truly understand me and this disease like I thought they did. Am I really this alone again in yet another disease. Please don't let me be alone in this Lord.
