Pero dies

Pero died during the night. The girls were home from Tokyo yesterday morning afterwards, towards the end of the day, she seemed to just gently let things go at last. I think probably she was just slipping in and out of a coma due to lack of kidney function as the toxins inexorably built up in her blood. We took her into bed with us to nurse and she died just after three.

We've been nursing her for two weeks. Maybe the toughest part of it for all of us, not least Pero, was all the contrary signs we have had during that time. Her blood tests showed that she was critically ill and deteriorating and yet she was so alert and often so happy to be around us. We could sense a general weakening going on, and yet at the same time her appetite and ability to eat and drink was improving as the rest of her body recovered a little from the virus. So there was always some hope that her kidney would pick up and it was difficult to remember that it was becoming a vanishingly small hope and then at those moments when the reality of it stuck home there was so much grief, so many tears. In the end you have to come to terms with accepting and beginning to let go.

Thank you to all our friends who have kept us in their thoughts during this time. Pero made so many many friends during the ten years we had with her since the girls found her as an abandoned kitten, and especially amongst the students who visit our home every week.