Dealing with Pet Loss and Terminal Illness

Shes not just a companion, shes been through 15 of my 17 moves since 2006, she coos and growls and sings in response with my speech, she pokes me with her muzzle for attention—or to pull me out of dissociation—or to remind me to eat. She whines and groans and then howls if I'm up too late and demands I come to bed. She wakes me if I try to hide from the world under the sheets. She snuffs and scoffs in response to questions... And none of this was trained. I have severe combined-type ADHD and severe ASD and I just dont know how life will ever be the same, or how I'll ever manage time-blindness or forgetfulness, or depression. 💔

I'm so -ng close to losing my day-one and I just dont know how to prepare. My therapist told me that out of anyone he's ever treated and anyone hes ever heard a case of—I need an E/SA letter for mine more than all. The thiught of her passing regularly makes me break down wherever I am. She's an APBT almost 15 (avg span is 12) Ive had her since 8wks when I was 18... and I just took her in for a large gum tumor removal, only to find the vet we've had since she was 4 retired between our visits without notice, and the new vet says she can't get near enough margin to remove it, and that her neuro tremor that started after the 3 asthma/heart attacks she had in the last 2 years makes her too wary to even put her under Twilight to remove some considerable skin tags, let alone her oral cancer, so to make the rest of her time as comfortable as possible.... And i just... I was not ready for this... Not at all. Everyone I've ever known, bosses, friends, family—all know that when she passes I'm on watch.

Oh good gods i have no words, but many tears

Thank you to everyone for sharing. Although it is terribly sad to hear that all of you have lost furry family members, it’s wonderful to hear about them and to hear how loved they were (and still are.) My dog McGinnis died late last year, very suddenly, from a heart tumor we didn’t know about. He was fine in the morning and then his heart basically exploded and he was gone. I was with him almost until the end. They took him away to work on him at the hospital, but I think he had lost consciousness by then. I held him in my arms as he collapsed in the hospital entryway and I think he was gone from that moment on. I hope he wasn’t upset that I sent him back with the doctors. I wonder if I should have stayed with him, but we didn’t know what was wrong, and I wanted the doctors to do everything they could. I miss him so much. We got a new dog, Summit, in early January. He is wonderfully sweet and I can’t believe how much I have loved him from the moment we met. Unfortunately he is very sick and only has a few more months to live. We didn’t know this when we adopted him, so it has been so much to wrap my head around. Knowing that I’ll lose two dogs in less than a year is breaking my heart. I try not to think too much about how little time Summit has but it’s hard not to let it consume my thoughts.

I lost a cat very dear to me several years ago from a sudden illness (he had FIV, got cancer, cancer spread super quick due to the FIV). It was very hard and I was very upset. A few months later my coworker was struggling and couldn't take care of her kitten and offered it to me. I did the math and her kitten was born the same week I lost my cat. For me, what was so hard about the grief was that my love for my cat didn't have anywhere to go when he was gone. So for me, taking in the new kitten, it was hard, but my love had somewhere to go, and I was able to heal.

What's really helped me with losing my cat, is talking about her with people who also loved her and had a connection with her. I had to battle a lot of thoughts of "It's a cat. People don't care that you lost your cat" but being able to talk about it with others that were Grieving her or even strangers that had recently lost their pet as well and understood how big it can feel, made the process so much smoother. Sometimes I close my eyes and think about her lying on my chest and I just speak to her as if she were there

Yes, my dog Dio died in 2016. He had been my angel while I was struggling through some really, really hard years. Losing him was a shock, even though I knew it was coming…he had bladder cancer and took about a year to deteriorate to the point where I just had to get his euthanized. We had a really nice memorial for him, buried him up on my moms land in the country, wrapped in one of his favorite blankets and surrounded by some of his favorite toys. In 2019, my mom died suddenly. One thing that really helped was reading the book, “It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand” by Megan Devine. While nothing took away the grief I felt (it’s one of those human feelings that we just need to experience in order to get through it), this book really helped me normalize the feelings and emotions I had. It took me a while, but last year, I adopted a dog, Snacks. He makes me think of Dio sometimes, and he’s also his own unique and special little self. It’s going to be hard to lose your dog. It will suck, and you will experience some really uncomfortable feelings. But just know that everything is temporary, and while we don’t ever “get over” the loss of someone we love, eventually it becomes easier to integrate their death into the reality of our lives. I wish you the best last days possible with your doggy ❤️

I'm so sorry! I don't have that exact situation, but my cat was sick for a long time and passed a couple years ago, so I can at least say I relate to the pain of losing a close pet. <3