Sad Update

Hello everyone,

I've been putting off writing this, but I owe you fair warning: I might be a little late with the TEWWBAD chapters this week.

You may remember that my cat took unwell a couple of months ago, so unwell that it seemed like she was going to pass. With antibiotics and changes to her diet, I managed to get her back into a good place... but she was still slowly dying of kidney disease.

Last week, she went blind due to high blood pressure. Medication brought her blood pressure back down and her sight seemed to come back, but she had reached the point where she stopped eating because everything tasted terrible to her (one of the key signs of late stage kidney failure is everything tastes like urine). She was losing weight very quickly, to the point she was skin and bones: sitting down or lying on her side was uncomfortable because she had no fat, and she was losing muscle mass.

An appetite stimulant may have encouraged her to eat more... but would it really have been fair, to force her to live on?

Last Thursday, I made the difficult decision to end her life. She passed on Friday, at home with the assistance of a vet, while curled up on my lap. She was purring in the end.

I'm doing okay now. I think the two extra months gave me time to come to terms with losing her, and I grieved pretty hard on the Friday and Saturday. But, being honest with you? I burned through my fully revised and redrafted chapters as she declined. It's impossible to hold the emotional space to write and rewrite like I do while struggling with those kinds of feelings.

I think I'm going to be on time for both of the chapter releases this week (I'm sitting down right after this to try and get chapter 63 into shape — it's gone through five rewrites this past week, and I only figured out what the problem was when I finished the most recent draft last night).

But, if I'm a little late? I'm very sorry, and I'd ask for your understanding while I get back on track. I've been doing this for nearly six months without taking a break or missing a deadline, so I hope you know that this isn't laziness or disregard for your patronage on my part.

Fingers crossed, this warning is totally unnecessary.

Thanks for reading, and please dote on your pets for me,

LJ