This past week, I had to make one of the toughest decisions of my adult life so far — the decision to put down my fur child. Losing family pets as a child or even as a young adult is so difficult. But when it's YOUR pet---when you're on your own, single, and independent, it can feel so much harder. Because in addition to mourning its loss, it's dealing with having to make the decision to put it down and realize you are doing the most loving and selfless thing you can do for your pet.

Sam’s story is pretty unique. To memorialize one of the sweetest cats, I’m going to tell it here.

I started volunteering for Red Paw Emergency Relief back in 2014. In short, the organization rescues animals from house fires and other disasters and places them in foster care until their owners can take them home again. While most of the animals are reunited with their owners, unfortunately, some end up surrendered. After failing at fostering two cats that year, I was set on only fostering for short-term needs, and for animals whose owners were clear they would be taking their pet back.

In early 2015, Sam was placed in my foster care after her owner’s house had a fire. Sam was bonded to another cat in the household, who unfortunately did not survive the fire. When I brought her to my house, she was timid and sweet, and just wanted to cuddle.

After a few days, she wasn’t so shy anymore. She played with one of my other cats, Phoebe, and they became good pals. But she stayed affectionate. In fact, sometimes she would get so overstimulated when I pet her that she couldn’t help but nibble my arm.

A few months later, her owner stated that she wanted her back, but her house wasn’t quite ready yet. So, her cousin agreed to house Sam for the time being so that Sam’s owner could visit as much as she wanted (the owners don’t have direct contact with Red Paw fosters). I agreed to bring Sam to the owner’s cousin’s house to reunite her with her owner. I was sad because she was the biggest sweetheart, but happy that she’d be back in her momma’s arms.

When I arrived at the house, the owner, her son, and the owner’s cousin were inside. Sam immediately jumped up on her owner like she never missed a beat. However, the cousin didn’t seem happy to have her there. In fact, she said several things that made it clear she was not happy about the setup, and then I was worried for Sam’s well-being.

After leaving the house, I bawled in my car because I didn’t want such a good cat to be unloved, or worse, mistreated. I contacted Red Paw and offered to foster her again for longer.

A couple months later, the cousin refused to keep her anymore and she was placed in my foster care again. Except this time, the owner went silent as soon as I had her back with me.

Eventually, Sam was surrendered, and I knew I had to keep her. She stole such a big piece of my heart, and I couldn’t let her go. I was elated.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016. I was recently single, living alone for the first time, and dealing with a few challenges. As cheesy as it sounds, Sam was my little constant. I could come home after a bad day, pick her up, and she would literally wrap her paws around my arm and nuzzle her face into my neck. She would sleep with me every night, greet me at the door, and always snuggle on my lap.

One night, she urinated on the living room floor. I brushed it off like a freak accident, until she did it again a few nights later. I took her to the vet the next day, thinking she probably had some infection and needed antibiotics to knock it out of her system. After all, she was only four years old.

Nothing could have prepared me for hearing the vet say, “This is not a UTI. There’s a good chance Sam has lymphoma.”

I was heartbroken. Over the next few days and weeks, everything was a bit of a blur. So many options were discussed, and I was determined to do everything I could to give her a fighting chance without ruining her quality of life. The only issue was that it wasn’t cheap. Between the diagnostic tests, the vet visits, medication, chemo, etc., I was looking at thousands of dollars. Now, while living alone, finances were tighter, and I simply didn’t have the means to do it on my own. However, I set up a GoFundMe page and friends, family, co-workers, even some people I’ve never met were kind enough to chip in and help with the cost of Sam’s care. It took a village, but with the help from so many people, Sam was able to get started with monthly chemo.

It started off great and she took it like a champ. No negative side effects and after two doses, her levels were improving.

By month three, I still thought she was doing great. But, her levels proved otherwise. The vet told me that she was no longer responding to the chemo and likely only had another 1-3 months before she’d surrender to the lymphoma.

I cried the whole way home from that visit, but was determined to make the next 4-12 weeks the best Sam could have. Unfortunately, about a week and a half after that visit, things went downhill fast.

She got very sick over the weekend, and I thought maybe she was just experiencing side effects from her latest round of chemo. The vet prescribed anti-nausea medicine and I increased her daily steroids, and she seemed to improve over the next two days. However, a couple days later, she started getting sick again.

Last Wednesday, I got home from work and she was curled up on my bedroom floor. She meowed at me in a way I never heard her meow before, and she was completely weak when I picked her up. She could no longer walk on her own, wasn’t eating and wouldn’t use her litter box. As hard as it was going to be, I knew it was her time.

The next morning, we arrived at the vet and I said goodbye while holding her as she took her final breath with her little paws wrapped around me like she always did.

Losing Sam was incredibly hard. She was so young, I only got to spend a year and a half with her, and we fought so hard to battle her cancer. I’m still teary-eyed as I write this, but I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to own the most wonderful pet, even if for just a little while.