August 9, 2020
Once again, I haven’t written in ages. For multiple reasons. But for mental health, I should probably be journaling. I’ll skip the recap of the past months for now, and just write about the most important thing.
My cat has cancer. It’s been a couple months to figure this all out. She lost a lot of weight in a relatively short amount of time. Take her to the vet, he does rudimentary tests and says she’s fine. I’ve done research and think it’s either IBD or cancer, and push for an ultrasound. He does it, sees nothing and says she’s fine and probably just has a finicky appetite. We had an incident almost immediately after where she was woozy and wobbling and I take her to an emergency vet. They do the same tests, but have a radiologist read the tests. She has thickening of her small intestine, and a couple other minor things. So, with them I talk about a biopsy and the possible treatments. I call my vet and he’s like are you sure you want to do a biopsy? He just wants to do steroids. She’s almost 16 and she’s had a good life and probably the only thing we can do is give her steroids and make her comfortable for her remaining time. I say no b/c if it’s IBD, steroids and management, but cancer maybe means chemo and steroids will fuck that up. I push the biopsy, but I think he’s going right into her small intestine but he actually does a whole exploratory. I thought he was just dicking me for price and stuff, but that’s the one thing where he was right and I was wrong (literally the one thing). We get the results and it’s cancer. He at least admits that I was right not to start the steroids right away. So all along, he’s pushing for me to give up on her. In his defense it’s because all of this is massively expensive. I live in a neighborhood with many, many cash-strapped people, and I myself spent most of my life poor as fuck. But I keep saying I’m going to do what’s best for her, regardless (up to being unable to afford things). But I make it clear that while I don’t have money for them to price gauge me, I can be open to the expensive options. Over and fucking over. My vet doesn’t get it, but the emergency vet did. Truthfully, I’d have preferred to stay with them but they are way outside of my price range. So now, I have an appt with an oncologist on Wednesday to find out what her prognosis is and make a plan. She’s doing better since I had gotten her several rounds of fluids, we put her on anti-nausea/pain meds, and I switched to an IBD diet (expensive, high-quality cat food). After initially freaking out, I think I’ve gotten slightly complacent. Because she’s doing better than she was before, so it’s harder to see how sick she is.
This has already cleaned out my savings (over $3k) and it’s gonna be more money regardless of the treatment plan. But I am so grateful that for the first time in my life and I can afford to take care of her the way she deserves. Up until three years ago, and I’d have had to make decisions based on my wallet.
And she deserves the best. I don’t know how to explain it. I was shocked when I found out how old she was last year, because time seems not that long ago. And shocked that that’s considered senior or even geriatric. She doesn’t look like it. I swear to god she looks like she’s 3 or 4 years old. Even the vets were shocked at how old she was compared to her looks and health (health before the cancer). And she’s so sweet and gentle. She’s a bit of an introvert, like myself. I love her so much and I thought I had at least 2 more years with her. I don’t know what I’ll do without her really. She’s been my only real family, the only one who loved me unconditionally, for over 15 years. We’ve been through so much together. I’ve gotten into scrapes b/c of her, and missed out on a ton of great opportunities b/c of her. And I swear to god that all of it was/is worth it.
I don’t get much quality sleep these days. She wakes me up at least once a night for pets and/or food. Some times, I’ll leave food out but she won’t go to it without me. She also has a habit of not eating, so I put it in the fridge and then immediately after that door closes she wants the food lol. Sometimes now I’ll put it in the fridge just to get her to come out and eat. And I cracked a tooth or something from all the stress grinding while I was worrying. Having trouble getting a dental appointment.
I have to be careful how much I talk about this of course. I learned the hard way that people can only handle so much unhappiness for a finite amount of time. Even if they do sympathize with you. And many don’t understand who she is to me. Because they have human beings. And to be fair, very few have met her in real life, and because she’s an introvert they only get a glimmer of what a truly great cat she is. Hell, even I forget sometimes. But like the people at the emergency vet loved her. They get a bazillion animals and yet she still stood out to them.
Because she’s glorious.
