The hardest post to write so far.

Miles passed away the day before Thanksgiving at 4:51 p.m.
When he was diagnosed with kidney disease in April of this year, he was very close to death.  He had been eating very little and had not had a bowel movement in some time.  I should have been paying better attention.  He was so young, I wasn't expecting it.  Apparently, kidney disease can strike a cat at any time and they aren't really sure why.  Cats are just highly susceptible to kidney problems.  They gave him some shots and an enema - which was not a popular procedure with Miles.  He had a lot of pride and doing such things was unspeakable in his view.  The vet sat down with me and explained what was wrong.  It was a Friday.  He told me our main goal would be to get him through the weekend.  We made an appointment for Monday and he gave me his home number and the number for the urgent care clinic.  I needed to give him some medications every so many hours.  The vet repeatedly asked me if there were anyone that could help me.  No.  No one.  I was all alone.  The neighbors I sort of knew had moved away without saying goodbye.  Was there someone that I knew well enough to ask them to come into my home and shut themselves into a bathroom with me and a once-feral cat and force medicine into said cat?  Not even a little bit.  No family, no friends, nobody.  You see, the military base is extremely unfriendly.  I have said hello and waved to several neighbors, even made eye contact, and they have pointedly ignored me.  They don't do friendly.  They don't do attachments.  I told the vet I could do it.  And I did.  On Monday they told me I would need to learn that day how to put a needle into Miles's scruff and let fluids drip through the tube and into his system for about 15 minutes every day (150 cc a day at that time).  I thought they were crazy at first.  That sounded impossible with any cat, especially Miles who would only sometimes respond to his name when I called him. x.x  I inserted a needle into a different cat for practice twice and then we decided to administer fluids to Miles.  And he was better for it than the practice cat had been.  He just curled in my lap and allowed it.  The vet and the technicians all asked me a few more times if there were anyone else that could help me.  Anyone at all.  Only my therapist and they don't usually do that sort of thing.  So every day I would worry and stress and feel scared about doing fluids.  He had been okay for it at the vet, but he was very offended that I wanted to do it again at home.  He would jerk around, bite me, hiss, try to bite the needle (I almost stabbed him in the eye once, so we skipped that day), run off the needle in the middle of giving fluids (he ran so suddenly once the the needle cut him and blood sprayed across the bathroom floor and wall and I cried for a long time).  But every single day we would at least try and he learned that no matter how terrible he acted or what he did or where he hid, we were doing this.  And he started to realize it helped him feel better.  And after a while, I would set him on the floor, encircled by my legs, and he would just settle down into a little loaf and let me administer the fluids.  We had to do some kind of medicine or the fluids or trying to eat every couple of hours all day.  I would sleep four hours at night because he would wake me up gently because he needed to drink fresh water after that.  I usually didn't eat until after we did his fluids at 2 p.m. because I felt too nauseated and tense to get food down before that.  And at that point I was so tired I often would just have something like a granola bar or a piece of toast, just something to keep me going.  And since I would often exercise as an outlet for the stress, I lost 30 pounds by August.  We changed medicines frequently.  We changed schedules frequently.  I tried only to buy absolute necessities and keep aside the rest of the money for Miles's vet visits.
I loved him so much.  He was all I had.  He and Zoe were my only friends, the only ones who loved me for a great distance in all directions.  He'd been my baby for 7 years.  I felt closer to Miles than any person but John.  I was going to do everything I could do to keep him going as long as he was happy and had a good quality of life.
Miles turned 8 in October.  I hadn't dreamed he'd make it so long.  We were doing fluids twice a day by that time (75 cc at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.) and were basically keeping all of his systems going through medication.  Laxatives to keep his digestive system going, injections to keep his blood count up, pills and injections to keep his nausea down, injections and pills to stimulate his appetite, regular blood tests to monitor his different levels.  He had been pretty happy and would still play and watch out the windows and snuggle with us and everything was fine.  And then he suddenly took a turn for the worse.  He wasn't eating and became temperamental and easily agitated.  He didn't play hardly at all.  Maybe a few little pats at a ball we were desperately trying to get him interested in.  He growled and hissed a lot.  He started laying under his favorite chair upstairs all the time.  We'd have to go get him for his medicines or to eat.  He would slightly weave when sitting still.  He started falling when he'd try to make jumps he'd never missed.  It seemed like such a long time but it was only 2 or 3 days like this.  We went to the vet the Monday before Thanksgiving.  The vet told us that Miles must eat.  We could try anything.  He ate a little bit that night and the next morning - sour cream, his favorite, sometimes with a little tuna mixed in - and we were back at the vet on Tuesday.  The vet checked his blood pressure and thought that might be an issue contributing to his worsening.  They'd need to check the blood pressure again in the morning.  That night he didn't eat at all.  He kept crying and crying if we left him alone.  John slept on the floor by him that night.  Miles didn't eat again the next morning.  At the vet that morning I told him how bad things were getting.  He said he'd definitely need to see Miles again later in the day and instructed me to give Miles the injection for nausea and the appetite enhancing pills and see if he would eat after a couple of hours.  I did.  And he didn't eat.  He seemed so tired.  He was scared and in pain.  So when John and I took him to the vet again late that afternoon, and the vet told us things didn't look good, we asked if we should euthanize him.  I was filled with such a cold cold pain.  Miles was just cradled in John's arms looking so tired.  The vet explained to us what it was and he said he agreed that it would be the best thing for Miles.  He said Miles had a lot of dignity and deserved to go while it was still in tact.  It would have just gotten worse.  Much much worse.  I didn't want to be selfish.  And when I had been extending his life with medications for so long, I felt I would be hypocritical to say I wanted to wait until he died "naturally" because that would have been 8 months before.  Making that decision was the worst moment of my life.  But even though it was very painful for me, it was best for my boy.  (I've always called him that. "My sweet boy.")  The receptionists and technicians all cried and all came and hugged or petted Miles goodbye.  He only hissed and growled a little bit.  He was very patient.  They gave us some time with him and we cried and talked to him.  I told him if there's anything after this that I will spend the rest of eternity finding him.  I told him he didn't have to worry about me.  He was always doing his best to take care of me and protect me.  He even stood over me and hit John once when John was tickling me.  He was so fierce.  He had so much panache.
The vet and one of the technicians gave him a shot to help him fall asleep so that the injection itself would not be painful.  They left us alone to talk to him some more as he fell asleep.  And then they came back in and shaved the fur off his little arm so that it would be easier to find a vein.  And as they put some alcohol over the spot to smooth the rest of the fur down in the area, little Miles growled a menacing growl in his sleep.  He was just like Cyrano de Bergerac.  He would go with his panache.  And our dear sweet doctor put in the needle and began the injection.  And he was gone only halfway through it.  The vet didn't even finish the whole dose.  That's how weak he was.  He had lost a half of a pound in a weak.  He was back down to the weight he was when we first started his treatments in April.  Full circle.  He felt no pain and he was with the people that love him.  It was very peaceful.  In a horrible way.  I felt this panic deep inside that I couldn't take it back.  And wanting to so so much.  I petted his skinny little body and cried.  I hugged the vet I'd been working so closely with and talking to usually more than once a week for 8 months and we both cried.  And I cried some more and rubbed Miley's little head and said, "my boy, my sweet boy" over and over.  John called him "son" like he always had.  And the sweet technician told us she would take care of him for us and our vet walked with us to the back door of the veterinary building and we hugged again and he told us we made the right decision.  That the timing was perfect.  Not too soon and not too late.  We had spared him undue suffering after extending his life for what would have been 3 years to a human.  That the past 8 months had been remarkable.  We went to our car with the empty cat carrier and our dear vet waved to us until we couldn't see him anymore.  And we dawdled around getting something to eat and shopping for a while and then we went home and told Zoe.  She has curled up by his carrier for part of each day since.  And I went to his spot by his favorite chair and my soul poured out of my eyes with my face in the carpet and his favorite toy in my hand.  I cried harder and louder than ever before.  My Miles has been there for me every day for 8 years.  The longest we'd been apart was 4 days.  We'd been apart less than 10 days total in his lifetime.  We were each other's world.  I will heal, but the pain will never really go away.  I will just learn to keep going in spite of it.  And that process will change me a lot.
It was worth it.  That pain was worth it.  And I would do it again.  Those 8 months we had together were very hard and very beautiful.  People can say he was just a cat.  But I don't care.  Anything is "just" anything.  It's all in the looking that changes what things are.  He was everything to me.  And I'm so glad that he found us.  He made us who we are.