RIP Siggy

Last night he seemed to be doing so much better. He took bites of his new food a few times walked around the apartment a little. We thought he'd turned the corner.

This morning at 3 am Liza found Sigmund lying several meters from his little shoe-box bed, drenched (with sweat? Didn't smell like anything else in particular . . . ), and making an eerie noise. She immediately woke me up and told me he's dying. When she put him in my arms he was completely limp.

For two hours I sat in the salon holding Siggy, petting him and rocking him and willing him to die quickly, and crying. It was terrible. Every so often his head would move a little and he'd open his mouth and make a noise that sounded a little like a scream, like he was crying far away. He sounded like a ghost cat.

At around 4:30 his eyes got glassy and his nose started turning blue. I could tell he wasn't aware of anything any more, even though he was breathing a little and his heart was beating pretty quickly. At 5 I tucked him into his bed, took a shower, and went to sleep.

At 7:30 he was still alive. I petted him a little so that maybe he'd know I was there, and I read him the last few paragraphs of Watership Down, through my tears. He licked his lips a little.

By 9:30 he was gone. Maybe now he's in a place where he has the energy to play with his toys, and everything is made of salmon and warm spots.

:'-(

Goodbye, Siggy. I'm glad we could make your last days a little more comfortable.

Liza and I have decided that we might take in Siggy's sibling, but only 3 weeks from now, since then the kitten will be 2 months old already -- and therefore more likely to live long-term, says the vet. We don't want to go through this again right now, watching a sweet little kitten take hours to die.

:'-(