Farewell Mishu

(Written Friday, August 3)

Over the past week we noticed that Mishu was not well. He was becoming very lethargic and was sitting funny (including in water). We had taken him in to the vet a few weeks ago because he had some blood in his urine, but that went away and seemed ok. Yesterday, the vet realized that his bladder was hugely swollen. He did surgery and discovered it was full and nearly bursting. After draining the bladder, the doctor realized the urethra was clogged with blood clots, so Mishu had not been able to urinate for some time. The doctor was going to clean the urethra today after recovery from the first part of surgery, but Mishu died this morning.

As somebody whose never really had pets before, I (Daniel) had never really understood how much a pet becomes part of your family. It was a very sad loss for us, especially because Mishu was at the vet's for the past 3 days and the last we saw him, he was miserable. We had no idea we were saying good-bye when I brought him in.

It's a strange paradox how life and death continues on. While we are both very sad about losing Mishu, we're also overjoyed at the imminent coming of our child. We had talked about how good Mishu would be with children, but that is not to be. Already we miss his snuggling, following us around, and awkward sleeping positions. Chai clearly doesn't understand, but we can see that she is acting differently since he's been gone too.

Farewell Mishu/Fluffy/Garfield/Fatso/Kitty/Mini-Lion. We miss you.