As long time readers know, we have lost three cats since April.
Kitty had FelV when we rescued him from the streets. He was happy and well for two years but then, as is the way of FelV, became deathly ill and despite trying to save him, he died in my arms.
Annie we adopted at age 13 because she had diabetes and her family didn't want her any more. She was diagnosed with mouth cancer in March and died a week after Kitty.
Anubis (brother of Asp, Bastet, Bes and Rowan) went septic for some unknown reason in July and we lost him within days.
Our family has been greatly reduced. Charlie has said over and over "No more cats! We will get down to 2-3 and KEEP it that way."
Famous last words from the man who is usually responsible for adding furries.
Last night he called me on his way home.
"Do you know anybody who would want a 14-year old cat?"
"Um, NO."
"Well the 90-year old lady who has it is getting sick from it and they told her she has to get rid of it. The Humane Society will just put it to sleep..."
"I know they will. Honestly though, who in their right mind would take a 14-year old cat? I only know two people, and, unfortunately, they both live at *our* address."
Long pause.
He answers, "How long could it live?"
I thought, "Long enough for me to get attached. Long enough for me to love it. Then, it will die."
I have no idea what this cat looks like. I don't even know if it is male or female. I do know our home will be a huge adjustment after being an only cat. However, Annie adjusted, so I am hoping everything will be OK. (PLEASE, Bast, let everything be OK!!!) We need another cat like we need more holes in our heads, but what else can I do?
- Mood:
nervous
Today I opened my e-mail to find the following two cards telling me that donations in Loving Memory of both Annie and Kitty had been made to IMOM by the Sweet Talk Diabetic Cat Board Members.
Thank you Marnie and all the members of ST...
- Mood:
touched
I wanted to write another piece for today, one about Annie and just how special she was. However, it’s not working out, it’s not the painted portrait of my girl that I want it to be, so it will have to be a post for another day. I refuse to Not give her personality and sweet soul justice on the page.
- Mood:
melancholy - Music:Pictures of You by The Cure
Even though it was only 51 degrees here yesterday the sun was shining so I shut off the heat and opened the windows in the dining room. Other than a brief time in the window on Friday, Annie has no interest.
She comes each morning into the kitchen, both when I get up to make coffee at 4:30 and when I get up at around 7. Each day she asks for food/treat. Each day she eats less. I offer her item after item and she looks at it and dismisses it. Sometimes she will taste. She ate a few bites of fancy feast last night. Today she drank a few laps of cat milk. That is all.
Monday night I skipped her shot. When she asked for food but wouldn't eat it Tuesday morning I checked her bg. 350--which is not excessive high for her but I gave her half a unit and she ate. She nibbled a bit here and there all day, but only after I played the buffet game over and over. She refused tuna/tuna juice. I didn't give her a shot or even test her last night...I know she was too low to shoot, especially with this refusal to eat. I don't want her to hypo in the middle of the night while I am sleeping.
She wandered down the hall yesterday and ended up curling up on a blanket I keep beside the dirty clothes basket. I figured she was cold and covered her with a baby blanket. She slept that way for several hours until I fucked it up by giving her her pain meds...I waited an hour past the usual time because I didn't want to disturb her.
She goes to Riley's door and wants in the office. She lived in here most of her time with me because she came from a one cat house and wasn't too pleased about the high population here. However, when she comes in here, she drinks from the water bowl and then just stands looking around, like she forgot why she came in here.
She wanders into the bathroom and does the same thing--"Why did I come in here?" and wanders back out.
Sometimes she curls up in the dining room chairs and sometimes she stretches out on the floor. She looked like she was going to settle into the chair in the living room that all the cats take a turn in--it has an knitted blanket and a quilt on it, but then she changed her mind and wandered down to the bedroom.
I'm thinking about just giving her the buprenex (pain med) and only the evening predisone. The meds matter less and less...after tonight I will probably stop the pred altogether.
Her drooling and mucus do not seem to be increased. She doesn't seem in pain. She just seems restless. Even if I hadn't already made The Appointment, I would still know our time is growing short.
I haven't even had her a full year, yet my heart is breaking. She has a lot of personality and I am really going to miss her. I do not allow myself to cry in front of her, but I'm not ready for this...
- Mood:
heartsick - Music:Anna Begins by The Counting Crows
2:45 Saturday. Although she is still enjoying life and food, the tumor is growing. Her right eye is squinched--she looks like Popeye. There is more and more blood when she eats. I would rather "do it" too soon than too late. Like Bunny, I promised momma would stop it when the pain started, when quantity overshadowed quality. We can cancel or change the appointment, but, it is made. I am hopeful we don't need to go sooner. She still comes wanting food and that is GOOD, but the swelling and the breathing and bleeding...all are not good signs. We are nearing The End and I, as the 'responsible party" (WHO would have Thunk that would ever be said of ME?) am in the painful process of acceptance and preparation...and no, I am not doing well with it at all. I just want to get drunk, pass out, and sleep until everything is OK again...which at this point I believe will Never Be.
- Mood:
depressed
Annie is still comfortable and content as we take every day one day at a time and realize each one is A Gift. Some things are worth the trade-offs and sacrifices, the do-withouts and the wait-till-laters.
ETA: Annie was invited to join The Gals this weekend. Although she travels well and really seems to enjoy it and she HAS been on planes (when she lived with previous family), I decided taking her was not the best thing for Annie. The tumor is in her head (mostly mouth and sinus cavity right now) and I was worried the pressure in the plane would hurt her.
- Mood:
grateful - Music:Sacrifice by Creed
Annie was recently diagnosed and on an insulin that about 50% of the cats using it go into remission. She also had a food change that we did not know about back in 1997 when Bunny was first diagnosed. Her "honeymoon"/diet control was not a red flag.
Unfortunately, she does have cancer though. Unfortunately she is dying. Unfortunately all she wants to eat is crunchies and cat treats--the former she was not allowed and the later she was given only in moderation because we were trying to control her glucose with only diet. We are letting her eat whatever she wants because, well, she is dying. The cancer is in her mouth and as long as she can eat, she will get whatever the hell she wants to eat.
This morning I listened to the nagging urge to test her glucose. 454! PISS! Mind you, she had just eaten a bunch of treats, but still...So I gave her half a unit of Lantus and got her to eat some canned food and will retest in a few hours. It makes me nervous to give the insulin at all because Bunny's only ER/seizure hypo in six years happened after the cancer. You never know when it is going to decide to eat some of the glucose. Bunny's insulin needs dropped by about 66%. Annie was only getting half a unit before she stopped needing any insulin at all. How the hell do you give less than that?
In the words of the immortal Gilda Radner: It's always somethin'.
- Mood:
tired - Music:Perfect by Alanis Morissette
and have to decide where you are putting two new graves--one that must be dug and one that will be dug far sooner than you had hoped.
No, Annie is not going downhill. However, this IS a fast acting cancer and we will be Very Lucky if we get two more weeks. I think I will put her by Bunny. It will be my Sugar Baby Garden--besides it's all blues and pinks and purples, very feminine.
Kitty will go just on the other side of the yew, in the memorial garden that runs along the front of the house where Salem, Dee and Sam sleep. Oddly, it just dawned on me we will have black cat, orange cat, orange cat, black cat...symmetrical. Salem died this month last year. Sam and Dee were brother and sister. Strange how that garden is coming to be.
- Mood:
indescribable
Kitty has fluid around his lungs. Heart looks and sounds good. Lungs do not sound like they have fluid in them. His intestines on the x-ray, in fact his whole abdominal cavity, look almost like he swallowed a sponge—there are few lines in the intestines, kidneys are hard to spot and his spleen was unfindable on x-ray AND when she felt him. Three vets looked at it and had never seen anything like it. We know when he DOES eat, he vomits it right back up, we just don’t know WHY. SO, we have no clue what is wrong. He is getting 6.25 lasix bid for the fluid, and 2.5 mg pred in the hopes that it will do Something. His kidney and liver values were all in normal range. Glucose Low, but that is to be expected from not eating.
4/8/08
I gave kitty a half lasix when I got home. He pooped at around six o’clock. I managed to syringe feed chicken baby food (about 9 mls) with a bit of Cat Sure mixed in and he kept it down. He got another lasix in the evening (8 o’clock) because Charlie gave him the wrong pill.
This morning 6.25 lasix and 2.5 mg pred. Still lethargic. Still has fluid and labored breathing. He IS urinating and able to go to the box on his own. This morning about 5ml of beef baby food with NutraCal mixed in. I don’t want to feed him too much at once and have him vomit and thus defeat the purpose. Hopefully the NutraCal will raise his bg’s a little so he EATS on his own.
- Mood: indescribable
Charlie woke me up this morning at 5 am (I had just fallen back asleep from waking him up for work) to tell me this:
He went out to the kitchen and Annie came running. She stood facing the cupboard where I keep the treats. Her tail was quivering with excitement. She was making her signature "oinking" sound...
so he gave her treats
and more treats
and more treats.
And she gobbled 'em all up! Was the closest we've seen to "normal Annie" in days.
- Mood:
optimistic
She is keeping her mouth cracked open to breathe. She has started doing the scary head bob thing when she eats the heaps of pate cat food. I do not allow myself to cry in front of her. This is my fourth cancer cat and none of the others have deteriorated so fast, so noticeably FAST. I feel very very helpless.
And every time I find her at the food bowl with blood around her mouth and her mouth cracked open I see SAM. For a split second she isn't Annie she is Sam. He's here. and he is doing all he can. And I feel just as powerless and useless now as I did then.
- Mood:
sad - Music:Haunted by Poe
My sincere apologies for taking so long to update. I have been trying to absorb and wrap my head around all that is going on with Annie and have been having a hard time with it all.
The bleeding is because the tumor in her mouth is growing and when she eats dry food it hits the tumor and makes her bleed. It does not seem to be causing her any pain. There is a buffet of canned food out at all times, she is eating the kibby because that is what she wants. I will start watering a bit down with cat sure (elderly cat milk that is full of extra calories and vitamins for cats eating less or off their food) to soften it and see if she will eat the kibby that way. I had been watering her food down to shake consistency with water, but yesterday started with the cat sure so that she isn’t just getting a bunch of water with less nutrients.
It’s in her sinuses or it is pressing up against them. She sounds stuffed up, like she has a head cold. Drooling increasing. The most alarming development is her head movement. I first tried to give her her meds in a pill pocket, but she cannot zero in on single treats. Her head pecks at them and she paws at them with her feet, picks up treat then drops it. This morning she began evening eat pate mounds of canned food this way. She reminds of a CH (born with brain problems) when she does this. The vet and I are unsure whether this is the cancer getting into her brain OR if it is due to it pressing on the sinuses.
I have buprenex (sp?) now for pain if she starts to show signs. Still 7.5 mg pred BID and her antirobe/clyndamicine, which she is almost done with.
She still eats with gusto. She still growls at the other cats—she is now in the general population because that is where she wanted to be. She has her own chair in the dining room with a lovely burgundy fleece cat blanket on it. She doesn’t know she is dying, that is my burden to bear. She just feels “off” and doesn’t understand why she has to keep taking meds.
The head thing has added a new complication, but it isn’t BAD yet. As long as she can eat, as long as she is not in pain, as long as she seems relatively comfortable and still enjoying her life…we wait. The vet’s estimate has been reduced to one month. I honestly will count myself lucky if we go that far.
I won’t be online much. I will try to keep you all updated. The house of cards that has been my life for quite some time is falling down a bit at a time (OK, some parts in scary exploding heaps like when Alice was attacked by the cards in Wonderland) and I have to get some control here or there will be nothing left.
Thank you everyone for your support, your prayers and your love. They really do make a difference and we appreciate it more than words can say.
ETA: Forgot to mention that we have to watch for her to have difficulty breathing...it's something that can happen with the sinus cavity being in the tumor's path.
- Mood:
exhausted - Music:White Flag by Dido
- Mood: scared
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wyrdwriter- Kimber
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