R.I.P. Buttons

Tuesday
A really sad day today, as we had to take Buttons to be put down. She was 15 1/2 and had been suffering from kidney failure since the summer. I had been giving her fluids at home and she seemed to be doing really well until early last week when she went off her food. We took her to the vet on Wednesday and they ran more tests, but said it was probably due to the kidney problem. The results came back Friday and were really bad. They had her in over the weekend, administering fluids as they had in the summer, then took more tests, and sent her home yesterday. Roger had picked her up from the vet and when he left the vet she had seemed her normal feisty self, miaowing loudly in protest at being in her cage. As he walked in the door at home, she miaowed loudly once, but that was the last time we heard her normal miaow. We opened the door to the cage and expected her to come walking out, but she just stayed sitting there, so we lifted her out and set her on the floor and she just sat down in a heap, as if she had no use in her legs. We set her down in the family room, and she barely moved from that spot. Unfortunately I wasnt well this morning - stomach virus - so I wasnt able to do much until this afternoon, when the vet called and said the results showed she hadnt responded, not that I needed telling. So we arranged to take her in. Roger met me there and he took her in, I'd been crying all the way there, just as I'm crying now writing this, and I couldn't go in with him - I'd said my goodbyes to her at home.

We're going to miss you, Buttons. We're going to miss your really loud persistent miaows, you tripping us up in the morning, until you'd been fed, you chasing squirrels and ground squirrels in the garden in your more energetic days,you sitting in your favorite chair in the corner of the breakfast room in the sunshine, and many other things which I am sure are going to come back to us in the days ahead.