Spock is still alive but I'd be astonished if he makes it to the Solstice, at the rate of his decline I don't expect him to make it to the end of the month and may not even make it out of Taurus season (though if he does, I am hoping he won't die while my parents are visiting their Montana cabin the last week of the month because it will be very difficult for me to move the large stumps and dig a second grave to bury Spock alongside Audrey Puburn as I told them both. If I have to do it by myself I will, but moving the heavy stumps off the spot and back and digging the hole (I'm surprisingly bad at digging) would be much easier if I have someone to help me with Spock's burial.) Mostly what brings him joy now is being near me and he's only eating small amounts at a time, not enough. I've been feeding him a high calorie supplement with vitamins/mineral since he stopped eating much. I'm trying, but there's so little I can do for him now other than love him and be with him.

But he is still here with me. For now.

For the last week or so, every time I come home and every time I wake up, there is a dread upon me that this may be the time that I will find his small body stiff and his soul gone from it.  He's under 8lbs now, less than half the weight he was just a year ago. His creatine numbers looked great so Erin was cautiously optimistic about his stage if we could get his weigh loss in check, but creatine numbers improve in ckd as you lose muscle mass and Spock has lost much of his muscle not just extra weight -- he's skin and knobby bones covered in fur at this point. He's also developed a worsening cough over the last week or two, and a dry cough in a cat with ckd is usually a sign that thee ckd has progressed to the body being unable to regulate water so fluid can build up around the lungs. It's possible it's a respiratory issue from the off gassing of the new carpet based on the timing or that he somehow picked up a bug of some sort, but most likely it is the progression of his ckd.  The vet did run a thyroid panel on his most recent blood sample and his thyroid looks good so that's not part of the weight loss. The next step would be a full geriatric blood workup and spending several hundred, maybe a thousand dollars on chest x rays and ultrasounds to check for masses/growths -- but what would be the point of finding out if he has cancer when he's too old and weak to even consider spending thousands of dolalrs on surgery he may never wake up from the anesthesia? And his health is too frail and he's already eating so little (I have to tempt him with soft food and shredded chicken now to get him to eat these recent weeks) so he'd not be able to handle chemo or other harsh medications.  He's a 16 year old cat, which is like an 80 year old human.

 Is what it is. It's the peril you must always accept giving pieces of your heart to mortal beings -- even though the soul goes on and you may have them again, they will be different and you will be different, and there is always a sorrow and the empty spaces in your heart and life when those you love end their time in their current body. trying not to love and give of your heart freely to mortal incarnations is worse damage, but it doesn't mean it ever stops hurting the loss and empty spaces where once was an embodied soul you loved.  My heart is and has been a rather bleak colorless stoic space these recent weeks -- and it will get more desaturated by the emptiness of loss as I make my way through the hollows of grief before it gets better. 

Anyway. I need to try to see my cousin sooner rather than later because her triple negative breast cancer is non-responsive to chemo and so my time with her is also measurably finite -- but right now she's in a space she's looking for those to remind her of joy and to bring her happy encounters and with everything going on with Spock, that's not me right now even though it's normally me.  She would understand, but I need Spock to either improve or pass on before I reach out to her because she needs a better version of me than the one whose first thoughts upon waking or coming home is, "Is my sweet cat still with me or is today the day I must dig his grave?" and who spends the time at home watching the cat breathing to make sure it hasn't stopped and spending up her energy/prana/chi to make sure that he's in not in pain since he's beyond energy healing his failing organs shutting down. I'll have the better version of me for Shauna soon, or as much as I can be while I'm in the hollows of grieving deaths, but I'm not there yet and I don't want to reach out to her just to weigh her down when that's not what she needs. I should also visit my grandma, she doesn't have any appointments til the dentist in June, but she is also wasting away and her mind isn't there anymore and I try to give her of joy when I see her in these her twilight years.

Both of them deserve better versions of me if I'm going to spend time with them within their own battles than this waiting for Spock to die hospice for my cat version of me. 

But anyway, if you're trying to reach my heart right now on the psychic or 5d or dream space level, it won't be the place you're used to reading and it's not in a stubborn refusal to give up because it MATTERS mode, it's a bleaker place on the outskirts of the hollows and it's prone to sorrow and stoic acceptance about letting go because sometimes there's no other choice.... 

Just know and expect that is where my heart is and it will take time for it to heal and bloom back into its normal greenness and stubbornness -- it's not about you but about what else is going on in my life and in heart right now as this point in my life. If there's a fight to be had to hold on and build something real between your heart and mine it's not in me right now to be the one holding the line and fighting for it because of the stage of grieving and letting go my heart is in as I'm watching my 16 year old cat who has been my companion and familiar for over 15 years slowly lose the battle to hold onto his body and this life and to move on to wherever the next stage of his soul's path takes him. I've invited in Audrey and the Morrigan and Hecate to help him across his threshold and to help him achieve it in peace with as little pain/suffering as possible -- but it still is what it is. I'm sure my neighbors are hating on having George Winston playing 24/7  for over a week now but I'm not taking that away from Spock turning it off while there is life in his body and it is giving him comfort/joy in his sleeping/waking hours.

Anyway, I have a concert on Sunday (Bridge City Sinners at High Noon Saloon) then checking on Henry all next week while Crissy is in Kansas City for DI (I will be checking on Henry Monday til Monday) and making sure I take care of the car stuff this week and then my parents will be driving out to Montana next Fri (taking their dog Sophie with them so not staying there as much as I'm at home -- just bringing in mail and checking on things) so I'll be spending a bit of time by myself  with my books and Waffles and Spock for as long as I have him. If/when Spock passes, I'll write at least a short post acknowledging it even if I can't much words right then. Expect that no writing here means that nothing material had improved the situation for Spock to rally make me expect him to continue longer in his life nor has Spock passed on yet. It means I'm still in this bleak stoic liminal heart space between what was and what will be and making the best I can of the threshold and pouring love/release from physical pain within my sweet Spocky boy while he's lingering on with me.