Preparing to say goodbye

My journey with Mea these past few months has been very difficult.  I have wavered in my decision a few times, and keep hoping for a miracle, that she will go back to her old self, start gaining weight, be able to jump and play again.  But alas it is not to be.  I have been reading a lot about when to say goodbye to your pet, and found a few sites online. One has a "test" where you score the pet on certain things and if the score is higher than 8, they say it is time.  Mea scored 13, and that was me being conservative on a few things.  She's been back on the antibiotics for a couple weeks now, with more to go but I just don't think she's really living any more.  She sleeps unless she is out of hiding looking for food.  She eats a lot, but is still losing weight.  She isn't grooming herself any more, and has difficulty walking around.  I know in my heart it's time. 

The difficulty now is the timing of it.  My previous cat died at Thanksgiving, so I don't really want to do that again, it would bring a really bad vibe to the whole holiday.  However, I'm not sure she'll make it with us gone away for the long weekend (for any Americans this coming weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada).  But on the other hand, it would be leaving poor Snickers, my other cat, alone for the whole weekend, and taking her in Friday to say goodbye, then leaving him alone, I suspect he'd end up a tad depressed and sad.  I can't take him to my parent's as they have a large black lab who takes great joy in chasing cats.  My thought right now is to wait until we get back.  Which leads to the "what to do with Jackson?" dilemma.  I don't want to take him with me, but getting someone to come watch him will be tricky, and to go without him during the day means taking a day off work.  Now I do need to go see the city about my daycare spot, but apparently I have to wait for them to send me a letter to go in, so I'm not sure when that'll be (since I was supposed to go in August and I'm still waiting...). 

I guess I just keep hoping some miracle will happen if I wait one more day.  Perhaps she'll start to play again, or jump up on something, or clean herself up a bit.  I've been brushing her but it's not the same.  To pet her is just painful with her losing so much, her body is eating her muscle, she has no fat left, and it's just so hard to see her like this. 



Mea looking like her regal self





Back when they got along




Jackson is 4 months, and Mea loved him and put up with anything




enjoying the baby's things