Oh Crappy Day!

I've been quiet on the net lately.  Trying to raise the moral a little.
I hope this post makes sense, I didn't take the time to read it over yet.  

It all started with last Tuesday.  

We went back to the vet for a follow up appointment on Friday.  She still hadn't eaten anything or used her little box.  When we got there they had already decided that it would be best to do some blood work and x-rays to see what was going on.  We sat, for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for the results to come in.  We were squeezed in between others appointments.  It was really hard to watch everyone happily sitting with heir pets that were there for their routine things.  We spoke with the vet who suggested surgery "It would need to be done tonight" is what she said.  They were unsure of what the outcome would be.  We were then left in the exam room while they came up with an estimate.  The tech came in after a few minutes with a piece of paper, she started to explain all the amounts and what they are for, my eyes went straight to the bottom right, to the total damages.  I won't mention the price but let's just put it this way, it was not in our budget.  There was no way we could work the numbers to make this possible, the car needs parts, the house needs work, the kid needs food.  And again, we were left alone in the small room to discuss what we would do, all the while the cat was laying on her side on the exam table, every so often her back legs would twitch, every time this happened I felt a jab to my chest.  We called the vet back in to discuss our other option, the one no one wants to think about.  She mentioned cost for the different options, take the body home with you, group cremation, individual cremation, we looked through the urns available(very, very ugly by the way).  At this point we made what would probably be one of the most difficult decisions we will make in our lives, we decided to have her put down.  What I find made this the hardest on us is that it was mostly decided by our bank account, if money wasn't an issue we would of had the surgery done, we would of fought to save her.
Today was my first morning home with just Ollie, no meowing for food, no furry thing passing through your legs as you make your way to the bathroom in the morning.  It is the smaller things that hit the hardest, finishing a roll of toilet paper (we usually just threw it in her direction so she could play with it), finding the plethora of toys that she had lost under the couch, seeing the whole that we cut in the door for her.
We had her from the first day that Louis and I moved in together.  We had made a detour to go and get her, we chose her over the super cute little kitten.
We are taking things day by day, pretty much the only way to handle the loss of a loved one, even if it's just the cat.

We have a new decision to make in the near future, do we get another cat or do we go ahead and get a dog?  If we choose dog, what breed do we pick?
Do any of you have insight into this?  Favourite breeds that are good with kids?

Oh and if that friday evening wasn't horrible enough, we spent the rest of the night in the emergency department of the children's hospital because Ollie had a fever.  Those were the instructions given to us by his specialist.  Fever=emergency.  After almost 6 hours of waiting, blood tests and no sleep we got the results back that his white blood cells look amazing now and that we can just treat him like any other kid with a fever.
The good news came on Saturday morning so Friday the 20th will forever be remembered as one of the shittiest days ever.