Hi all, it was only Wednesday this week that I lost my beautiful 12 y/o boy cat, and I am really struggling. I miss him terribly and I’m so scared that I should or could have done more and could have saved him, or could have at least understood what was going to happen and made sure he was absolutely spoiled rotten in his final months. He was diabetic, diagnosed last April, and needed twice daily insulin injections, but recently he’d been doing so well with it and by this week, we had got him into diabetic remission. However, I think it was around mid-July I started to wonder if he seemed a little bloated and round, but he had continued to eat really well, pass normal stools etc. Some days I’d look at him and think he definitely looks a bit round, but I’d ask my husband and he’d say he’s fine, he’s just full. I kept an eye on it but sometimes it would appear less so/sometimes more so. Being diabetic, he’d lost weight and muscle in his back legs, we were also feeding him more because we wanted him to gain weight, so my husband’s rationale was that both of these things meant his abdomen appeared larger than it might usually - this makes sense, but I was still worried and debating each week whether I needed to raise it with the vet or not. Part of me was terrified something bad was happening, but my husband’s assurances and my own fear/denial stopped me making that call sooner. He was due an annual health check so I kept thinking if it was a persistent problem at that point, I’d ask them about it then. The last few weeks I had noticed he was more subdued maybe, not coming to get us for breakfast but still keen for it and eating it well, he seemed less active and I was worried that he was uncomfortable around his stomach so was being very gentle with him, however he was giving us great blood glucose readings and again I feel like while part of me knew at this point that something bad was happening, the positive diabetes readings gave me false hope that whatever was happening, might not be serious, because surely if he and an infection or something, we wouldn’t have just conquered the diabetes. He went for his health check last week, I raised my stomach worry and the vet we saw wasn’t too concerned, said he couldn’t feel anything (incredibly, my cat allowed him to touch him), we could look at doing some bloods going forwards and it may be a bit of irritable bowel disease, and also he may be experiencing some osteoarthritis which explained him being slower, not jumping up on the counters so much. It was only when he brought up blood on Monday and Tuesday mornings this week that concern increased. I took him back in on Tuesday but he was wild in his carrier and the vet couldn’t get near him, I realise now this wilder than usual behaviour was because he was in pain and feeling vulnerable. The plan was to bring him in Wednesday lunchtime for bloods, scan and endoscopy under sedation, but we didn’t get this far. Tuesday night his breathing seemed fast, but again husband reassured me he just needed to rest and we’d take him back for all his tests the next day, so we left him in his usual (usual for the last few months) spot in the kitchen and went to bed. Wednesday morning he didn’t wake us up for breakfast as usual, he was laying at the bottom of the stairs unable to get himself up and had urinated in the kitchen. We took him immediately to the out of hours vet who said he was in incredible pain and that it was likely a stomach or liver cancer ruptured, and that he could go into cardiac arrest at any moment, she could do tests if we wanted but prognosis was very poor and he was so unwell he could pass away during the tests; we chose to PTS. Vet said even if we’d caught it earlier, the outcome would likely be the same, and that while cancers can be slow growing, the onset of symptoms can be sudden and deadly. He hated the vet, they were never able to manage him without sedation so weren’t ever able to examine him properly, and I have a vet nurse friend who has said that this could not have been prevented or treated, but I can’t help all the “what ifs”, and wondering if I let him down, if I could have saved him from the pain if I’d made that call and really shouted about his bloating each time my attention was drawn to it, or at least saved him from the way he ended up going 😭 I can’t get over why I didn’t just make that call to raise my worry back in July/August, it would have been so simple to make, I don’t get it. I also hate that I left him alone in the kitchen on Tuesday night and he couldn’t get to us, how long had he been laying there waiting for us. His passing feels like such a blur and I’m terrified I didn’t say enough to comfort him as he went, I just can’t seem to remember it. I haven’t slept or eaten since he passed. I love him so much, he was my best boy. I imagine “what ifs” and guilt are a part of grieving, but it is all honestly so debilitating.