At least it was sudden.

There were good things about the day today, and I promise I will focus on them at some point, but I feel that first I need to get the negative part of my day out in the open.

I slept in to my alarm this morning, which is a very rare thing.  More often than not, our big male cat, Rueben, wakes me up before the alarm, bumping his head against the door when he thinks it is time for his breakfast.

That didn't happen this morning, and neither was he waiting for me in the living room. Instead, I finally found him downstairs, when I went to change out the cats water.  He was huddled in a corner, meowing in a pathetic manner.  Around the room there were several spots of...well, not throw up...but more of a foam material.  When I bent to pet him, he started purring right away, but his muzzle was damp, and he just had a general air of 'miserable' about him. 

Just yesterday, he had been fine.  He woke me up, and eagerly ate when I put fresh food in his bowl.  This time, he didn't move from the corner when I topped off the food.  He was still in the same corner when I brought my dirty clothes down to the laundry room after my shower, and he had zero interest in me moving him.  A quick bit of research showed that those type of symptoms were 'Not Good'. There was not much I could do but leave a note for my wife, asking her to call me when she woke up.  I was worried she might not notice him downstairs. 

Fast forward...my wife called the local vet, and based on the symptoms, she was told to bring him in, and they would work him in.  Rueben is usually pretty mellow, but today he wanted nothing to do with the vet, and wouldn't let them look in his mouth.  The vet asked if we would mind them sedating him for the physical inspection, and we said yes.  The sedation seemed to work well, and they didn't find anything glaring wrong on physical inspection, but...he didn't come out of the sedation very well.  Low blood pressure, very lethargic, low blood sugar.  They kept him for observation and tried giving him some medicines to help him come out from under the sedation...but they didn't help much. 

Finally, they did some more blood work, and all indications were that his kidney and liver were not really working anymore.  Right around 7pm, we told the vet to proceed with putting him to sleep.  My wife, bless her soul, was the one doing most of the talking with the vet, and she kept it together until we got home from the date we were on. 

It's very much a bummer...and surprising.  I had zero idea we would have to make this decision when we went to bed last night.

We didn't tell the girls.  I'm not big on lying to them, but telling them right when we got home and it was their bedtime didn't feel smart.  We told them that the cat is spending the night at the vets, and I guess that is not technically lying. 

Tomorrow is soon enough for the whole truth. 

It's going to be interesting to see how Dahlia handles not having him around.