Saying Goodbye To My Sweet Lucy

TW: pet illness, pet death, pet loss, and pet grief.

This post is very late. At the beginning of July last year, my beloved cat, Lucy, suddenly had to be put to sleep; and when I say suddenly, I mean I found out on the Tuesday and had to take her into the vet for the final time on the Wednesday. It was a horrible, deeply distressing experience that I still don’t feel like I’ve recovered from and then, suddenly, I was thrust into my EP release and all of the work that came with that. But the year went downhill with a pinched nerve in my back and an awful, painful stomach problem, both of which went on for months. So, although it was great to finally have my EP, Too Much And Not Enough, Vol. 1, out in the world, it was a very stressful, very difficult six months and I just haven’t had the energy, the emotion, or the executive function to write about this until now. I wrote about half of this before everything else really took me out of commission and then I had to spend months on my back, trying to recover but in too much pain, feeling too sick, and on such strong medication that I couldn’t think clearly enough to write anything at all. But I still wanted to get this finished and posted because it was a really significant experience, a really difficult time with a lot of difficult emotions to try and manage. I’m still working through it and to not write about it feels a little like I’m doing Lucy a disservice. That’s probably not super healthy but it is how I feel right now. So I’ve finished writing this post and I’m putting it up…

On the 1st July 2025, my Mum and I found out that Lucy, our eldest cat (although she was only ten years old), was in kidney failure and there was nothing we could do. They’d given her medication to make her comfortable and sleepy but their recommendation was that she be put to sleep in the next couple of days. I was devastated, as was my Mum, but I was also absolutely furious: Lucy has been unwell for some time and despite months of investigation the vet hadn’t found an explanation and then suddenly she was in kidney failure with no expectation of recovery…

Over the years, Lucy had had recurring mammary gland cysts that were benign but needed removing whenever we found them. The vet had tried a few different things before but came to the conclusion that surgery was the most effective method of dealing with them and up until this year, the surgeries had never been that big a deal; they were surgeries, yes, but simple ones that Lucy recovered from quickly. Usually she was back to her normal self within a couple of days.

But when she had one of these surgeries at the end of January, the vet said it had been more complicated than they’d expected; I believe the cyst was much more enmeshed than they had been previously (with everything that came later, the details of this surgery are now somewhat blurry) and so the surgery had been more extensive than had been predicted. The previous scars had looked big on such a small animal but this one looked enormous, running practically the entire length of her body. She was supposed to stay very still while she recovered and while she was on the painkillers they’d supplied, that wasn’t difficult; she barely woke up long enough to eat. But once she was more aware, she wanted to move around and so we had to keep her in the crate with short, supervised outings while she stretched her legs and used the litter tray.

Despite multiple trips to and from the vet and our obsessive observation, she managed to reopen her stitches, which was a traumatising experience – although more for me than for her, I think. The first time I saw it triggered a meltdown and I had to remove myself from the room so that I didn’t cause her any extra distress. After the shock of that, my Mum and I managed to find a way to apply the medication – it was definitely a two person job (although a third person would’ve been gratefully accepted since Lucy really wasn’t keen on the experience). It was really hard though: it was a scarily big wound, open and raw looking, and despite our best efforts, it got infected. And to compound my anxiety even further, Lucy had all but lost interest in food: we went through more types of cat food and appetite support than I knew existed and while we got her to eat a bit, she got scarily thin.

Slowly, she did get better but she never fully bounced back to full health, which had me worried.

We had the vets do more tests and they found that she was anaemic, which doesn’t manifest in cats the same way it does in humans (and therefore isn’t treated the same way), but the tests couldn’t identify the cause. She just kept getting thinner and thinner, which I found so upsetting, even though Lucy didn’t seem too distressed. I’m still not convinced the vet did enough, that they were doing the right tests, and I’m going to pursue it: if they fucked up her care, we could’ve had more time and I will never forgive them for that.

We alternated between different types of food, we tried different antibiotics, we tried steroids at various points (which did boost her appetite, thank goodness), and she sporadically regained her appetite, her coat got soft and glossy again, and she was more social, which was so lovely. Between keeping to herself while she’d been recovering from surgery and feeling so unwell and spending time outside during the warmer months (as all of the cats generally do), we hadn’t seen her much so it was really, really nice to see more of her. She’d stretch out on the sofa or sit at the front window to survey the street or, best of all, curl up next to me and let me stroke her while she snoozed. I was so pleased to have that back. With the surgery, her illness, and, of course, the dogs doing their best to take up any and all attention, I really hadn’t seen enough of her and so I was truly delighted to have some bonding time with her. And for a few months there – around April, May, and June – she actually seemed to be a bit better, although still too thin, given everything since January.

But then, in the last days of June and the early days of July – when it was incredibly, disgustingly hot – things got worse. All of the animals were struggling with the heat to a certain degree, despite all of our tricks, but Lucy seemed to be handling it really badly. There was a moment where I saw her from a particular angle and she looked so painfully thin and frail and fragile; it was so shocking that it sent me into a meltdown. A familiar claustrophobic panic rose up and sat heavily in my throat; I don’t know if it was just horrible, horrible fear or if I knew what was coming and didn’t want to face it.

Mum took her to the vet that afternoon – she pretty much had an all hours, all access pass by that point given how often she was there. They reported back on the last set of tests and told Mum that Lucy was in kidney failure; they’d made her as comfortable as possible but there was nothing more they could do. Mum brought her home and we got her out of the carrier so that I could hold her close and the two of us just cried and cried and cried. I also raged, as much as I could with Lucy in my arms. I was incandescent with fury, angrier than I think I’ve ever been in my life: I was and still am convinced that the vet didn’t do enough, didn’t take her lack of progress seriously enough – even all of this time later, they haven’t given us a clear answer for why Lucy went into kidney failure. But, at that moment in time, there was nothing I could do about that and I didn’t want to waste the time I had left with Lucy focussed on them instead of her. I had barely a day and a half left to love her and it wasn’t enough but it was all we had and I didn’t want her to go a second without knowing how truly cherished she was.

I spent the rest of the evening on the sofa with Lucy lying on my chest. The vet had given her some pretty strong painkillers so she wasn’t really with it, she just dozed on me as I held her and stroked her. It had originally been a busy week with lots of plans, especially in the evenings, and as much as I had been looking forward to them, I couldn’t have gone and handled the social aspect, even if I’d wanted to leave Lucy, which I absolutely didn’t. I didn’t want to do anything but be with Lucy. I wanted to stretch that day and night into an eternity, just me and her.

I barely slept, curled around Lucy, stroking her and talking to her. By the morning, it was clear that the medication was wearing off because she was clearly getting uncomfortable and struggling to settle. It was almost unbearable to watch but I couldn’t look away and sacrifice that time with her. So I stayed close by and tried to do what I could to make her comfortable. Even Izzy was keeping a quiet watch when usually she’s full of springs; there’s no doubt in my mind that she had a sense of what was happening and was feeling it all too.

The day was a horrible countdown to the vet appointment; it was agonising. Lucy was clearly in pain but she did eventually manage to settle against my chest as I lay on the sofa and I’m so grateful that I got to have that time with her, as upsetting as the whole day was. There was nothing I could do to make it better – for either of us – but I could make sure she knew how much I loved her and I do think that she knew that somehow. It doesn’t help me with how much I miss her but it does help me when I think back to that day and how hard it was. Getting her into the car and to the vet – in my lap rather than the carrier – felt like pushing against a repelling magnet: everything in my body was screaming that it was wrong. It was horrible. And then we were in the room and she was wrapped up in her favourite blanket and we were stroking her and talking to her while the vet gave her the injection. I kept stroking her and talking to her, even after I felt her go. Both me and my Mum were a mess. The vet gave us as much time as we wanted but in some ways, that was worse because the decision to leave her there was always going to feel like choosing to leave her behind. It’s an unbearable experience that somehow you have to bear and it was just beyond awful; she and I had been so close, from the moment I got her and I just felt – and to a degree still feel – lost without her.

Eventually we did go home, with prints of her paw and her nose, and I just didn’t know what to do with myself. The dogs seemed to sense that and they somehow figured out how to play together for a bit (when usually one of them gets too overexcited and they have to be separated before the game descends into complete chaos) and it did feel like they were trying to make us happy, even if they didn’t understand why we were so sad. The rest of that day is kind of fuzzy in my memory and I went to bed, heartbroken. And then, because apparently it wasn’t horrible enough already, I heard Tiger – of Mouse and Tiger, her grown up kittens – yowling downstairs. She walked all around the house, calling for her, and I ended up sitting on the stairs, in tears, because I didn’t know how to calm her down. She didn’t understand why Lucy wasn’t there and it’s not like I could tell her. That went on for days. All four of the remaining cats were restless and clearly upset by Lucy’s absence but Tiger had always been closest to her and it was heartbreaking to listen to her searching the house every night. It took her a long time to accept that Lucy was gone and she seems to be back to herself now but the dynamic between the cats does feel different now, which probably isn’t surprising given the loss of their lifelong matriarch.

I don’t really know how to end this post, maybe because there isn’t really an end. The loss of Lucy feels like an ongoing process. But in the days after she was put to sleep, I was suddenly rushing to release my EP, even though I’d never felt less interested or enthusiastic about my music. I’m grateful that I was able to but it was such terrible timing and I was so distressed and overwhelmed by my grief for Lucy; it was taking me so much energy to drag myself out of bed and function minimally, let alone engage with the outside world. So that was just really hard and a month that was supposed to be so fun and exciting and celebratory was completely overshadowed by the loss of Lucy. And when I was stuck in my bed and on the sofa, unable to move first due to pain and then due to stomach pain and nausea, she would’ve been my constant companion. I felt her absence so keenly. It was worse than the pinched nerve and stomach problems combined, which is saying something (especially considering I ended up in A&E at one point). I would’ve gone through that a hundred times over to have had her for longer.

Writing this has made me cry multiple times. I still miss her so much and the house still feels so empty, even though it’s still busy and chaotic with six other animals. It felt like everything became untethered without Lucy at the centre and, without her, we had to learn to connect again. That feeling has gotten less intense over time but it’s still there, even ten months later. Everything feels different and it’s a constant reminder that she’s gone. She was so special and I loved her so much; without her, I feel like I’m missing part of myself. I got a tattoo of her and it’s beautifully done but something about it has never sat right with me and I’m still trying to figure out what that is. I really want to get a tattoo of her pawprint too, along with the pawprint of my childhood dog, Lucky.

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.” – Charles Dickens