A couple of years ago his kidneys started to fail. We put him on special food, and made sure there was plenty of water, but we also had to give him subcutaneous fluids every other day. I may have previously described the fun and games of this exercise, but in summery he hated it. And he let us know by becoming invisible. He could be in our laps all evening, but the instant the thought crossed our minds that it was time for fluids, he had disappeared. It's not that he left at that moment, he just wasn't there anymore. No one saw him leave. We could look and look and not find him. Then when we gave up and got ready for bed, poof, he was back. On rare occasion he won and we did it the next morning, but usually we stayed up and did it.
The last few months he gave up becoming invisible (or disapprating for you Harry Potter fans) altogether, and all we had to do was scoop him out of our lap and carry him away. I always tried to anthropomorphize onto him the idea that he understood we were helping him live longer, but really, he was just too old to fight it. And we never felt bad subjecting him to it. He loved being alive, and the price he had to pay was fifteen minutes every 48 hours.
Of course these fluids had to go somewhere and this meant extra litter boxes, which I've since put away. But we bought nearly two years with the fluids. It was totally worth it.
Thanks for reading.
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