Not long

It's obvious now that Curzon is on his way out. He's eating almost nothing, and he's working hard to breathe. He refuses to let us give him any medicine. We're now trying to work out whether he's distressed. At the moment, he doesn't seem distressed or worried and certainly not in any pain. As long as that seems to be the case, we're inclined to let nature take its course in the hope that he can just go to sleep in a home he loves and simply not wake up.

The alternative is to take him to the vet, which would frighten and distress him. That's why we're avoiding it. It's also possible that he might crawl off somewhere, as wild animals sometimes do, but if we didn't find him we'd never know for sure what happened, or where.

For the past few days, he's left the house around 7:30 in the morning, jumping up on a railing of the fence, lying in some weed grass that got away from me over the winter. He feels safe in his spot, surrounded by the camouflage and removed from any other animals, including the boisterous puppy Jake. From his perch he can watch the birds (and anything else moving in the grass), an activity he's always enjoyed.

He returns home around 12 hours later and hops on my dresser to spend the night, possibly because our moving around during the night would be uncomfortable for him, since he has to lie in a sphinx-like pose all the time, no longer able to lie on his side.

So we watch him, looking for a sign that things have gone as far as they can and that we have to intervene for his sake, despite it not being the best of the worst remaining outcomes. It's a lot harder to know what to do than I would've thought, but I've never been in this position before. I wish I wasn't now.

I can't wait for this year to be over.

I took the photo (one of a series) of Curzon in his resting spot this morning. It'll probably be the last photo I ever take of him.