Things have definitely changed drastically since the last time I made an entry. I feel an unbelievable crushing weight of sadness and loss. We brought Bandit in to the vet on Saturday because he was not himself and had puked three days in a row. We found out Sunday after his blood work came back that he has acute kidney failure, his enzymes were 8 times what they should have been. We brought him in to the vet hospital Sunday around 1:30 and they started him on an aggressive hydration treatment to try to flush his system of the toxins and possibly buy him so more time. The Dr. is also giving him some medication to try to help his kidneys and a special diet. He will be there until this evening and they will re-run those kidney blood tests to see if he has gotten any better. We visited him last night after Bob got home and he was very lethargic, he didn’t get up and come to us but responded to our voices with little meows. He purred when we were petting him but he really didn’t look good. Bob isn’t taking this well at all, I have never seen him so crushed, he just isn’t ready to deal with the thought of Bandit not being around. I really love that cat and I miss him terribly already…this is probably harder to go through than losing Lilly but I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe because it hurts me so much to see Bob AND Bandit hurting, they are two of the most important things in my life.

I heard from Bob around 2:30 after he had spoken to the vet. The enzyme levels have not come down at all and he doesn’t think that Bandit would survive for more than a few days if he was taken off the IV. His kidneys are pretty much gone, damaged beyond repair and simply not functioning. We are going to head over to the hospital around  8PM and see him, but I think it will be for the last time.  We don’t want him to suffer and pretty soon his other organs are going to start shutting down as well and the last thing we want is for him to suffer or be in pain. It hurts so much to think about life without the little guy, every time I turn around I think of him and something he would do, like be up on the desk with me listening to classical music while I worked.

To top it off I need to go to Tucson tomorrow and will be spending the night and not returning until Thursday evening. I feel horrible that I won’t be here for Bob, but maybe he can use the time by himself with Myah tomorrow. I just know I would feel better if I were here for him, especially at night when falling asleep…he seems to feel safer talking about his feelings when we are lying in bed in the dark.

We said goodbye to Bandit tonight, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was so incredibly painful to see my husband hurt that much and to know that I would never see my chubby little furball again. I know it was for the best and I hope that he finds Lilly in heaven and she will finally have an old friend to play with again. The last thing I want to do is leave Bob tomorrow and be gone overnight, I am not looking forward to this little trip at all. I can’t imagine I will get a lot of effective work done either.