A few weeks ago, I posted that my cat had been diagnosed with liver cancer. Thanks to everyone, by the way, who responded with your sympathies. And to anyone who read it, really. That was touching, given that you don’t know me or my cat!
Anyway, she was given “four to six weeks.” Last friday she passed the four week mark, and she’s doing pretty well, considering.
She is not on much medication - just a Prednislone pill (a steriodal anti-inflamatory) each morning and 1/4 a ground-up Pepcid in her food each meal (to control her stomach acids). She’s more-or-less accepting of the subcutaneous fluids I give her each evening. I try to explain that it would be much simpler for both of us if she drank out of her freakin’ water bowl, but she won’t listen to reason.
Other than those things, life is pretty much normal. The only things that indicate she is sick is the occasional (roughly 3-4x/week) vomiting when all that comes up is bile (the Pepcid seems to help), and she’s frightfully thin. But she is social, visits me in bed every morning, hangs out with me on the couch at night. She meows, she eats (not as much as I wish, but more than she used to), her litter habits are normal (except the amount of her pee is pretty astonishing).
I don’t have any illusions that she’s getting “better” but…
OK, that was weird. As I was typing that she just came out of her litter box and I heard a “meow! thunk thunk” and she seemed to be dragging one or both of her back legs. I petted her and felt around her legs (which seemed fine) and picked her up for a minute. When I put her down she walked normally back into the kitchen and poked her nose in her food. Then she went back to the litter box. I can’t tell if she ‘produced’ anything but she scraped around. Now she seems fine. WTF? What might make her drag her leg(s) like that?
That’s the thing, is one minute I’m impressed at how well she’s doing, the next something is clearly awry. But she’s not hiding in corners, or crying, or anything I recognize as ‘dying’ behavior. I guess that time will come, I just wonder if it will be two weeks, or four, or one. But I suppose the guesswork is pointless, and I just try to live my life and be with her as much as I can and take things as they come. It is hard to see her decline, but for every day I wonder “is this the start of the downward spiral?” she’ll leap into my lap or jump up to the window ledge, or chase a shoe string and I hardly believe she’s sick.
And now for the obligatory photo set.