Havok died today at 20:00.

She hadn't been eating much, sleeping more, and moving less than normal for a few weeks. If you knew Havok, then you'd know that being off her food was a bad sign, so we took her to the vets about a week after we first noticed. The vet examined her, couldn't find any specific problems, and said that Havok was probably stressed from us rearranging the furniture in the lounge.

We took her back to the vet yesterday morning. They examined her and recommended that they keep her for observation and for IV fluids (to help rehydrate her). Early evening the vets called us and recommended moving Havok to the local animal hospital to continue the IV and observation overnight, and to perform an ultrasound in the morning.

We followed their advice and drove Havok to the hospital yesterday evening. This morning the hospital called and told us that Havok had a septic abdomen, and recommended surgery to get more information.

Havok went into surgery and never woke up. She stopped breathing during the procedure and was put on a ventilator.

Cats normally wake up within half an hour of surgery finishing, so the hospital calling at the three and a half hour mark to say she was still asleep and still not breathing on her own made it fairly clear that she was dying.

We asked them to give us/her another hour and a half for something to change. The vets had said that keeping her on ventilation for more than seven hours would start doing more damage, and we wanted to give her as much time as we could without hurting her any more.

(Since she was in a coma, I'm choosing to believe that she was at peace and in no pain. Effectively, to me at least, she died in surgery, and anything after that was an exercise in human pain management.)

The call came and her condition hadn't changed. We drove up to the hospital to say goodbye. We were taken through to her room where she was laying on a table under a blanket with her head and one leg poking out.

She looked fine, other than being unnaturally still. Husband and I stroked her head, called her name, told her it was time for food, but she didn't react to any of it. She didn't flick her ear to stop us from touching it, she didn't push into my hand when I scratched her cheek glands. This wasn't my cat, this was just an empty house that she used to live in. Time to switch it off and stop wasting resources.

The vets assistant disconnected the sensors and removed the tubes that were giving her fluid. The vet gave her a massive dose of anesthetic, and the assistant listened to Havok's heart and confirmed that it had stopped beating. Nothing changed. Havok was just as still as before. I kissed her little head and said goodbye.

Husband and I were both crying. It's not fair! Havok was a fantastic cat and we are good cat parents. We do everything right by our cats, they are fed, they run around outside during the day and sleep safe at night. Havok was a loving, tactile cat. She made the effort to come upstairs and snuggle me a few times in her final weeks (and Gods, if I'd known I would have payed more attention).

Insurance will take care of the bill (something like £6k+ apparently, don't care), and we need to tell the hospital what to do with the body (individual cremation, then probably scatter some ashes in the back yard here and maybe at the coast, but I've got a whole thing about her spirit being attached to the ashes that's causing me worry), and then life goes on.

I hope that, if Havok has a spirt, or a soul, or whatever kind of cosmic energy, she is happy wherever she is now. She liked being stoked. She liked snuggling between husband and me on the sofa. She liked to sleep on the cat tree in the study while I was at work, or sleeping in there. She liked being out in the garden on a summer's day with the rest of the colony playing hunt the sister in the tall grass. She tended to stretch out when she slept, clearly trusting us and her environment. She liked playing with Carnage and she wanted to play more with Storm. She stood up to the dogs who walk past the front garden. She was a good cat, and she will be missed.