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Ouro


OurosDad

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Hello

Ouroboros is my baby daughter cat and I was her dad for 3 years.  Her nickname is Ouro.  She was a domestic shorthair, with many beautiful colors and designs on her fur.  I am a 37 yr old male that has nobody else in his immediate life.  My parents live in another state but I have no kids, nor have I had a relationship for a long time.  Ouro was the beginning, middle, and end to my day.  My life formed around her, over time, as my career developed so did my ability to take care of her.   She got the most high quality foods, had so many toys, and I played with her when I got home from working 14 hour days.  I always told myself that no amount of sleep is worth missing out on playing with my girl.  We had lots of games.   She liked tunnels and stairs so much.   She was an explorer.  I had a hardwood floor so I would collect different colored pen caps from work and bring them home for her.   She loved pen cap soccer.  She was the goalie.  I would kick her the caps and she would pretend to hide and swat it away as it passed by her.  We had many other games too.  I put my absolute all into trying to give her the top level care and I knew that eventually she would die.   The doctors found a strange disease inside her when she was only 7 mos old.  They said it was FIP, then changed their minds.  I got 5 diff FIP tests.  I ended up spending a total of $7000 on tests and theories over 2 years but no vet could help me.  From this experience I learned that vets are actually quite stupid.  It only took me some cursory searches to uncover a basic idea of what was wrong with my Ouro.  Vets are like car mechanics, if you don't know what's wrong, they will try to confuse you and upsell you services that you don't need.  They are an unethical crowd.  I treated her condition via prednisone and B12/L Carnitine supplements I got from the internet.  I kept her bilirubin low with milk thistle, until the doctor finally prescribed me Denamarin.  After that we took it for awhile until pill pockets stopped working.  Moving forward I had to create my own snacks for her.  I would crush up Greenies into a powder, then use Tomlyn Pill Masker, and roll the bacon wrap in the powder; this was my most successful recipe.  I was very proud of our progress and gained confidence in taking care of my bear.  When COVID caused me to lose my job, I spent almost every day and night next to her for these past 4 months, until on June 8th, she passed away.  I am not at peace with this for a couple reasons.   And this is causing a lot of issues for me.  Its making me feel suicidal.  Because I believe that death is the end of ends.  There is no rainbows or fields. Its just non-existence.  And your consciousness returns to a collective, energetic state.  I believe that much of our consciousness is collective, and we have local consciousness for daily tasks only.  Thats why I named her Ouroboros, it is an abstract type of infinity.  

The night before she died I went out.  I NEVER GO OUT.  I thought she would be fine.   I didn't sleep with her that night.   It was the first biggest regret.  We did however sleep together that morning after I woke up and carried her to bed.   I'm so happy that I did this. 

That being said, I wasn't there for her in her last seconds of being awake.   I wanted to be.   I wanted to be so badly.   But the facility I took her to suggested euthanasia instead of life support.  I was about to call the whole thing off.  I could not submit an order to kill my daughter.  They brought me back to the OR, and the doctor said that Ouro had passed away while she was still getting her arm wrapped.   I said why didn't you bring me back here sooner, I exclaimed loudly omg my baby.  And immediately begin sobbing and holding her fur and kissing her face.  She looked like she died trying to fight to stay awake because she was waiting for daddy.   I cannot get past the regret of not being there to hold her.  Flashback for a second, I held her every night of her life for 3 years, except for one 3 day stay in the OR a few months before, and the last night.  I wanted her to drift off with daddy like she always does.  It would have given me some closure!  But their sub-nurse kept trying to sell me cremation packages and upsell me.  It made me furious.  The nurse gets to go back to her desk, "oh I guess I didn't make the sale", and I get to live with a lifetime of pain and regret for not holding my girl in the most important time of her life.  I cannot get past this feeling.  I dont think I can live with it.   I'm a risk to myself right now.  

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First, please do not take your own life. Call https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  1-800-273-8255

Next, I am so so sorry for you loss of sweet Ouro. Gone way too soon. Not fair!! :( 

I want you to know I understand your pain. It's the darkest pain I've known. I had our cat for 10 years (I know I was lucky to have that long.) We went to a mountain vacation house for the summer and took him. After a few weeks there, one night he got violently sick. Later, the emergency vet claimed he ingested poison, which I have no idea how that happened, we never found anything in the house and he was only indoors. Our last hours with him he was out of control, sick, howling. It was a total nightmare. My sweet innocent cat suffering... my heart literally felt like it was breaking. 

This was a little under 3 years ago. I don't tell you all this to feel sorry for me but to tell you I get it. I know it doesn't feel like it will ever be different. It will not always hurt this bad. But I will not lie, it takes time. The depth of our love is the depth of the grief. Please keep writing. Get it out here. I did and came to this forum so often to share my grief - keeping it in would make me feel like I would explode.

I hope you take care of yourself, Ouro would want that I am sure. What a sweet girl.    

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I am so sorry you lost your baby girl, she is very beautiful and contrary to what you may feel in the moment, you sounds like a wonderful dad to her.  You love her and that is what they need the most.

I lost my soulmate in a dog, Arlie in August.  In January I lost Kitty, 25 years old.  Four years earlier I lost Miss Mocha, now our family of four dwindled to just me.  I still grieve.  Please give yourself time to see this through, it can take quite some time to process our grief.  Always we love and miss them!  Right now their absence brings us immense pain, the habits/rituals we shared with them are reminders of their absence and it can feel more than we can bear.  Eventually the memories that brought us pain will change to one of comfort and a smile as we remember them.  I'm not quite there yet but I don't cry as much as I did.  Our grief journey evolves.

My son brought me a puppy before Christmas, it helps a lot but no one and nothing will replace my Arlie.  And Kitty was very unique, no cat like her!  We can open our hearts to share with someone but it will never "replace" what we had before, never.  And that is as it should be because they were special and unique in their own right and so was the wonderful relationship we were blessed with.

I do believe we will be together again and that helps me...I hope that though gives you comfort as well, regardless of one's belief system, there's a lot we don't know/understand and it helps to be open minded about the possibility.

 

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Hello, today is the 1 week mark.  She was alive still this time last week.  This is when we fell asleep together for our very last nap.  I miss her very much and I've come to the conclusion that its all my fault and I should have noticed the warning signs sooner.  She tried to tell me that she didn't feel good, and I thought that I was anthropomorphizing the situation instead of listening to my instinct.  I am aware of her condition being terminal, but it is of my opinion that she didn't need to die yet.  If I had handled things with more deliberation and not been in denial about her symptoms, I think that we could have had another month together or more.   I cannot forgive myself for this procrastination.   It has led to the death of my best friend.  

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I think we're all hardest on ourselves.  I felt bad that I didn't realize how sick Kitty was too, every time she was ever sick, which was rare, she always got better, she'd had an amazingly healthy life and constitution, I just thought she'd live forever.  I don't know how I could be so naive.  But she, unlike your kitty, had many years.  So unfair!  But you are not to blame for the cards that were dealt or her having something fatal, you took care of her and loved her and gave her as normal a life as you could.  She's so sweet looking here, thank you for sharing her picture.  I miss my Kitty and hope to have one someday...not right now, but maybe someday.

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She is so adorable. A week is so new. Every date is a painful reminder.

I remember the last time my cat walked away from me and went down the hall. His tail hung low and I had the fleeting thought, hmmm I guess he wants to go be by himself, whatever. A couple hours he was crying in pain. I wish I had held him. Maybe I would have noticed his paws were ice cold. We can second guess all day the things we would do differently. But will never know.

What I do know his people who come here are incredibly dedicated pet lovers that would never do anything intentional. We suffer for our dedication to a fault. We will never live up to the expectations we have for ourselves when it comes to taking care of our innocent animals. But we must. We are human. We do the best can with what we perceive at the time.

Take it easy on yourself please!

  

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