Entry 6 - 4/6/2025
Hey. Been a minute.
I've been... bad. Like, really bad.
We've known for a few months that my partner's dad (listed here as FIL for ease even though we're not married) was doing poorly. His cancer wasn't responding to chemo anymore, and he made the decision to stop and focus instead on end-of-life comfort. We got notice at the end of February that FIL was going to have weeks to live. My partner took the news hard. It's been a long time coming.
We were doing a ton of travel. My partner's family lives almost four hours away, so he was going back and forth every weekend. I went as much as I could, but travel is very hard on me. I'll get physically ill if I exert too much, and I get motion sick. It's not great. But I did what I could.
Then, we got the final news: Weeks had ticked down to days. 48 hours. We had just returned, but we packed back up and headed out again.
I was worried about this trip for a lot of reasons. Owlet had been acting strangely, and I figured it was the stress of us being gone so much. And I was feeling sick, like a migraine was building. And I was unsure how to be much of a support, since FIL didn't want me in the room - he looked really rough, and he didn't even want his children in the room, but they insisted. So I stayed at a distance. And I waited.
I got the text. FIL was gone, not long after breakfast. I'd been talking to my mom, who had gone to see Owlet... because he wasn't eating.
I went to join the family for final good-byes. And then, I got sick. Real sick. Twice. Great timing, right?
My partner and I weren't going to be able to do a lot at this point. It was all business and preparations, so we were told to head on home.
Only minutes after arriving home, we were on the road again, this time with Owlet in his carrier. He was... god. He looked horrible. Wheezing so hard I thought he was growling, not eating, barely moving... It was like a gut punch.
We drove an hour to the animal hospital ER. They took him in, gave some fluids, and did some early diagnostics. The vet thought he was just dehydrated, maybe a little sick, because he started to perk right up.
But it wasn't so simple. Owlet's preliminary blood work was ugly. He seemed outwardly better, but something was very, very wrong. We were advised to let them keep him overnight for more tests - full bloodwork panels, monitoring, ultrasounds, and more. The deposit was half of the upper end of the estimated cost.
The estimated cost? Four to six thousand dollars. That meant dropping three grand in one transaction.
I'm lucky. I had that in my bank account thanks to years and years of scraping and saving. It was my emergency savings, my "fun event" savings, and my entire future house nest egg. Everything. Every dollar. Seven years of savings, gone. It was worth it.
Looking at my bank account still hurts.
We returned in the morning, hopeful for good news. What we got was the worst possible news. Owlet's kidneys were malformed - one was teeny-tiny, and the other was overlarge to compensate. Neither was working properly. He'd had stones for god knows how long that had done irreparable damage to his body.
I can't overstate how fucking angry I am. In all his vet visits, talking about his weird litter box habits and his occasional refusals to eat and his penchant for a dozen cups of water around the apartment and the stripping his fur (due to "stress," huh?)... I was dismissed. My concerns were brushed off. I was told it was nothing.
They're lucky I'm too sad to do anything about how incandescently pissed I am.
We took Owlet in on a Thursday. We had them do a (very expensive) blood transfusion as a last-ditch effort. It was just a bandaid. We could've taken him home, but it would've been days before he started suffering again. There was no fix.
So, only two days later, on Saturday, March 22, 2025, we let him go.
I can't... describe it. The feeling of holding my best friend, my little furry soul mate, and feeling him just... stop.
It was the right decision. I know it was. I just hate that it came to this. I hate that there was nothing else I could do for him but put him out of his misery. Over everything, the anger and the sadness and the loneliness, I feel so fucking guilty.
After all's said and done, we owed another ~$1,200 to the vet. We looked at Care Credit, but it was smarter in the long-term to put it on one of our credit cards. We're chipping away at it.
My partner makes good money, and we'll be okay. I realize how extraordinarily lucky we are that a $4,500 vet bill is only minorly devastating and not world-destroying. I don't know what I'm going to do about the savings. It sucks so bad. I worked really hard for that money under dire circumstances, and I hate that it's gone. It was worth spending. I'm glad we did, even if it didn't fix the problem in the end. We made Owlet more comfortable, and he felt like himself right up to the end. That's worth any amount of money.
Anyways. The expected death of FIL and the unexpected death of Owlet happened in the span of literally two days. You could say we're handling it poorly.
Well. I am. My partner is surprisingly good. We both cried literally every day for almost a full week. But he's back to work, getting stuff done, hanging out with friends... Life goes on, no? He's sad, of course, but like I said, his dad's death was a long time coming. It's an end to a long suffering, almost a blessing in its finality. Now, he can actually grieve.
I'm something of a hermit. I know I am. All of my friends are online. The one who isn't lives two hours away. My own family is here, but every instance of grief I show to my mom triggers her own; my dad is a fucking asshole, and I wouldn't confide in him if he begged me to; my older sister has her own shit going on and sucks at emotions; and my younger sister also has her own shit going on. I can't overly rely on any of them.
My partner is here for me, and he's wonderful! But he's dealing with the loss of his dad, not just our cat. I feel horrible trying to lean on him, because he's having just as difficult a time. And he needs his activities, his routines, his friends, his hobbies.
Basically, I've been spending time at home on my own. Literally on my own, with not even a little furry guy to bother. I haven't been on my own in this apartment ever; I moved here with Owlet. It occurred to me, the first day I spent on my own, that I had never lived entirely by myself. It's always been another person or a pet.
I... am not doing well. Food is always hard, but lately, it's been impossible. I'm managing maybe one meal a day, if that. Safe foods are repulsing. My bar for frustration is at an all-time low. The gross envy I've got going on about my partner having Stuff To Do and People Who Ask Him To Hang Out Regularly is an extra layer of shit on top.
It's not the worst I've ever been. That's a testament to how much work I've done these last several years. But I'm really, really bad. Everything is really hard. I've been trying to write this for days. I only managed it because I came to publish the next chapter of Worthy and realized that it wasn't done. So, I had nothing to post. So, I decided to do this, because it's somehow less daunting.
I dunno. I'll be fine eventually, it's just... hard. I have more bad days than good ones. All of my routines have been ruined, because all of them were centered around Owlet's schedule and needs and whims. My sleep schedule is fucked. My eating schedule is nonexistent.
Having nothing to do and nowhere to go is only so comforting for so long. After a while, it makes me understand why people get into social alcoholism. You know?
[Heavy, loud sighing]
Anyways, this little blog entry is a good vent. I don't really... feel better, but it's nice to put the thoughts on paper. Right? I dunno. Usually, it helps more than this. Now, it just kinda feels like whining. Not very cathartic.
I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm lonely.
I need to rebuild my routines. I need to figure shit out and Go Out and Be Active. But it's hard to want to do.
I'll be fine. Eventually.
Anyhow. A touch of shilling, if you'd spare me a moment. I had closed commissions in anticipation of FIL's death, but I reopened them to help pay down the $1,200 of debt from Owlet's vet bills. I have a new goal on Ko-Fi of $1,000. We can afford the full balance (eventually, over time), but contributions mean less interest and less stress. We've already received about $160 from tips and commissions, and I'm so incredibly grateful for every single dollar. I really can't overstate my gratitude.
If something I've written has helped you, or if you've enjoyed something around these parts, maybe consider chucking some dollars at me. I'd vastly prefer commissions over just tips, so that you can get something for your money.
Okay, shilling hat removed. Thanks for reading.
I'm getting back in the saddle by sheer force, starting up streams, Free Tarot Fridays, and other projects to try and rebuild momentum. The next ADversary should publish tomorrow (4/7/25), and I want to type up a recipe I've been working on for alfajores de dulce de leche. It's almost right. My older sister requested that I figure the recipe out for her birthday gift, since she's been trying for literal months with no success. I managed to get very, very close with one try.
I am the King of Cookies.
Okay, that's it for this one. I hope your 2025 has been going better than mine. And, above all, I hope that the rest of this year improves. Holy shit, please, let it improve.
By Fate's Hand,
Aese.