Quentin

This has to be one of the hardest posts I’ll ever write. I haven’t felt much like blogging, checking my email or even just reading other people’s blogs over the past few days, because my family and I have been dealing with something very painful – the death of our beloved cat Quentin. Last week he began panting and wheezing and was obviously not happy or comfortable at all – he could barely get to sleep before he was up again breathing heavily. Over the past few months he has been breathing heavily and we kind of thought that it was because he was old. He had also been coughing a bit in the past month or so. So on Wednesday we took him to the vet.

It wasn’t good – he told us that Q had fluid in his stomach that meant his stomach was pressing on his lungs and forcing them into a smaller area. The vet also said that Quentin’s heart was failing. There weren’t a lot of options – paying 400-500 for tests to check what was wrong, or giving him an operation to remove the fluid which he might not survive anyway since his heart was failing, and then the vet also gave us the option of tablets to help Q pass the fluid out. We decided to go with the tablets, but they didn’t seem to do much for him.

On Friday he seemed incredibly uncomfortable and unhappy, he would go to sleep then wake up and start coughing. It was one of the hardest things we’ve had to do but we decided that he was suffering so much and was in so much pain, that we decided having him put to sleep in the most painless way possible would be best for him. We didn’t want him to die in pain from heart failure. He had a nice afternoon in the garden and had a salmon lunch and we took some photos of him. My sister, Mum and I decided we wanted to bring him home with us and bury him in the garden because he loved the garden so much and would always want to go out and sniff the flowers, especially after he went blind (2 years ago).

Seeing him go to sleep was difficult, but we had a chance to say goodbye properly. He was such a special cat – so beautiful and loving. He was timid but a real survivor too – when he was one years old he went missing for two days after he got run over at the back of the garden (which isn’t normally that busy), and had to have a pin put in one of his back legs. Then he went blind two years ago and the vet thought he might not be with us for more than a few months but he was a very happy cat and kept going. It’s amazing how adaptable cats are. He was incredibly vocal and would have long chats with everyone with his loud meow. He still had all his teeth whilst Georgina has none and Flossie only has two left (but she manages!). When Mum fell asleep on her chair in the evenings he would clamber up to sit on her chest, whilst she slept oblivious. He would wait outside my door in the mornings and greet me with a huge meow. When I was younger and upset about something he would always come and sit with me at the top of my stairs and tap me. He really was one of the bestest friends anyone could have. When I came back from University to see my family, he would turn his back to me, sulking because I had left him for so long. He was happy when I finally came home!

What I miss more than anything is being able to pick him up and hug him but in the last week he found it very uncomfortable and wasn’t himself. Usually he would come and sit with us and want to sit on our laps or be hugged so I think we all knew he wasn’t happy. I feel that we did the best we could for him and he looked so peaceful afterwards that even though my heart was breaking I knew we had done the right thing. It will take a long time to be completely happy again and I know we will all miss him very much.