R.I.P, Jazzpurr

I had to put my cat to sleep today.  He woke up gasping for breath around noon today, and when his breathing was still very labored a few hours later, my mom and I had to take him a half hour away to the nearest emergency pet clinic.  They took x-rays and discovered that he had congestive heart failure.  The poor thing's lungs were almost completely white, they were so full of fluid.  It was startling, since until today he'd been acting completely normally.  Just goes to show how well cats can hide their ailments.  Treating him would only have been in a supportive sense, since you can't really cure heart failure, and he was already 14 years old.  My mom and I made the decision that rather than bother trying to medicate him and make him wait the night to go to our own vet tomorrow, we judged it would be best to simply euthanize him now, sparing him (and us) the slow, inevitable (and costly) decline that he would have endured otherwise.

Jazzpurr (but I called him Puna) was my first real pet.  The others we'd had were more "family" animals, but Jazzy was mine from the day I convinced my mom to bring the frisky white kitten home from a friend's house in third grade.  We grew up together.  I put him in dresses, he slept on my face, I brushed his thick white fur, he would eat my cereal and drink out my glass when my back was turned.  He was my buddy, and I will miss picking him up, snuggling my face in his fur and hearing him purr.  But he had a good life, a good death and I'm at peace with my decision. 

Goodbye, Jazzy.   Sleep peacefully, my little Puna baby.