Goodbyes

Tuesday night, we put our beloved Kula down. It was the hardest choice Ive ever had to make. He's always been such a sweet cat..As you can see in the pictures he really did have such a love and devotion for his sister Tali and towards us.

However you could say that he's had some behavioral problems. He would bat, hiss, and attack visitors who approached him (not us). This scared me especially with a soon coming brand new baby.  Now in hind sight, I realize that his behavioral problems were probably signs of vulnerability really matters of health. He didn't trust other people petting him because he was in pain.  Poor poor Kula.

Over the past 6 months we've struggled with him. The last 2 got very difficult. It was a sore spot in our life. We just didn't know exactly to do. We watched "My cat from Hell" (although he was never THAT bad, he was just sick). We read books, I mean we did a lot of research. Everything we tried though didn't help.

Things got worse and as things progressed he got several UTI's. We found out that diet can really help with that so we changed his food to more expensive cat food, and even tried changing his litter. We made sure he got play so he wasn't over stimulated and just made him as comfortable as possible. In that span we also paid 600 on vet trips and medications.

It's been super busy week for us, so later that night James and I got home late from our activities, and noticed Kula was meowing a limping. At first we thought he just wanted affection, but it soon came to our attention that something was quite serious. It was 11 oclock that night and we rushed him to the urgency vet ER in Orem.

As we took him in they felt Kulas bladder and told us, his bladder was very full. (Meaning Kula wasn't able to urinate on his own.) They said that it's very common in male cats, and that what they could do is put a catheter in and drain it out and that would help him dramatically with the pain.  Theyd have to sedate him, and so forth and so the procedure was going to be around 500. We were more then willing to pay it, but as we asked more and more questions, the more our choice got harder to make. This procedure WOULD give him comfort, but it wouldn't exactly prevent him from not getting another bladder infection. The vet said he's seen cats come in 5 to 6 times for this, and then eventually if the cat sees enough trauma and reoccurrence, they do a invasive expensive surgery.

Our hearts sank. It's Christmas, We have a baby on the way and we can't afford that kind of treatment for no guarantees. Plus we didn't want him to live a life of pain, or have his behavior problems become an even more apparent and predominate problem, what if he attacked our child? So after MUCH hesitation (like an hour) we decided to put him down.

It's so hard to come to that decision. If your pet dies of old age that's one thing, but Kula was young vibrant and just a teenager. Worst of all, the guilt comes in. Did we make the right choice? Regret and sorrow fills our souls.

Deep down though, I know he's okay and that's he in a better place and Im glad we decided not to spend more money. It would be greedy on our end. We wanted him here, but at what cost? Would he be happy? I don't think he would be. I think he would have lived on, but been in much discomfort. Thats not the life I want for him. No more pain and no more suffering for him. The one good thing was that we did get to say our goodbyes, and burry him in our parents back yard.

It's been awfully quiet in our house and Ill admit its been a lot cleaner and easy to take care of, but theres a emptiness that comes. Despite all the hardship, he was ours and we loved him.

Kula you will be missed. We love you so much. I'm sorry for everything. Good bye my sweet kitty. I love you.