Dream State

The past few weeks, especially this week, have seemed sort of unreal to me. This week is definitely because of losing Bunky; he's been around for so long when he wasn't supposed to be that I thought he would ALWAYS be here with us. Work has been changing a lot too, and although it was initially my doing, I'm not really sure if it's good or not. I hope this clears up soon because it feels strange.

I thought that I would break down sobbing at some point over Bunky, at least once, since I did twice for melon. maybe that's a part of it, the grief is stuck inside and can't come out for some reason. I have moments where I well up a bit (we got a card today from the vet who told us he would be dead within a year back in 1998; it was a few simple phrases but very sweet and heartfelt. You would think vets always have clinical detachment, but I guess sometimes they don't), but no sobbing. I don't know if it will happen now, and I don't know what that means. Maybe the scab will be ripped off next week when I pick up his ashes.

Two things I wanted to mention about Bunk was the way he liked to snuggle you. He would bury his head in your armpit or elbow and be content to lay that way until you moved. Being cat people, we would try our hardest not to disturb the cats unless we lost total feeling in the snuggled appendage. I liked to scratch his back hard, I'm not sure if he liked it or not, but I wouldn't stop until he made this "mrat" noise. I hope he liked it. He would also give you a kiss on the mouth sometimes, but you really had to beg for it. He gave me one on Saturday, which is nice to remember now.

I still hope to write blogs about the rest of our animals, past and present. I'll try to get moving on that. Taking a break from Facebook to do something mildly constructive on the internet would be a refreshing change of pace. You may also have noticed that my book blog posts have fallen by the wayside. I was going to note that here awhile back when I joined Goodreads, but I stopped updating that too. Oh well, maybe I'll try again next year. One book-related promise I made to myself is to read the children's book The Enormous Egg this year. Why? The summer between 4th and 5th grade, we did a summer reading project where you would get a prize if you read the most books. I forgot what the prize was, but I won handily with 100 books. The Enormous Egg was on the list, but I actually did not read it. I had a pile of library books that had to be returned, so I just returned them all and told my mom that I had read them all. I felt bad about it, but it wouldn't have affected the outcome. To this day I feel bad about this, which is why I finally want to read it. Is that weird?

Goodbye Bunky.

I hoped that I wouldn't have to write another one of these posts so soon after Melon passed away, but it was not to be.

Bunky had been sneezing on and off for a few weeks and had also lost some weight. We had planned on taking him to the vet, but we were having some trouble paying our bills, so we kept putting it off. Aside from the sneezing, he seemed fine. He was eating well and constantly underfoot as usual, especially when I was preparing food. This past Friday he was in the kitchen, on his hind legs begging for cheese. Saturday he was with us on the couch while we were watching tv and had taken a nap with us in the afternoon. By Sunday though, he didn't respond at all to us calling for him, and also was not interested in the wet food we gave to him (he normally ate dry food). Remembering what Melon went through, we got the syringe out and gave him the juice from the cat food, then some chicken broth later on. He threw some of it back up but kept most of it down, which made us think that because he was congested, he couldn't smell the food and didn't want to eat it. So we put him in the bathroom when we took a shower and ran it a few times when we weren't, and it seemed to help him. Late Sunday night he was very lethargic and fighting the force feeding more, and he would make this long, distressed mewling sound which scared me. We talked about going to the emergency vet, but we knew we couldn't afford it.

I called our regular vet the next morning while I was at work. The only time they could fit us in was at 10, but I couldn't get off work that early on short notice, and Sarah couldn't leave work because she was there by herself. The vet receptionist made me feel bad about that, which I didn't care for. We settled on Tuesday at 10, so we tried to make Bunky comfortable until then. We tried giving him more broth, but he was fighting us even more. I went to bed early so I could get out of work in time to take him to the vet the next morning. I got up at 10 and Sarah was upset and said that we should probably take him to the emergency vet to have him euthanized. She said he looked yellow like Melon did, so it was probably going to mean more force feeding for him if we tried to keep him alive. We had agreed to stop doing this to Melon, so it made sense to do the same for Bunky, even though it hurt both of us to lose him.

We took him to the emergency vet and they told us what we feared, that he was most likely experiencing liver failure and had pneumonia, and there was no guarantee that he would be able to bounce back, so we let him go. The really strange thing was that just the week before, I had a dream that I was chasing Bunky and finally caught him, because he needed to be put to sleep. I finally caught him and gave him half a pill (we give our dog half a thyrozine pill every meal), and he died in my arms. It freaked me out a little bit when I remembered it afterwards.

For some reason losing Bunky was not as upsetting to me as losing Melon was. One reason may have been that we knew he was going to die from the first day we had him. My sister said that maybe because we just went through this with Melon, it made Bunky's death easier to deal with. Also, he went downhill so fast. Aside from the sneezing, he didn't seem sick at all on Friday. I'm not saying I'm not upset at all; I am. When I came home from work, he was always the first to greet me at the door, and I missed that yesterday. It was also weird last night when I was making dinner, no one was in the kitchen looking for food. I take comfort in the fact that we helped him defy the odds and that he lived a long and hopefully happy life. He could get overbearing at times, and I feel bad about how I reacted to that sometimes. But like Sarah said, he just wanted to always be near us, and that's not a bad thing.

Rest in peace Bunky, I'm glad that you came into our lives and I love you very much and I will miss you terribly.