So my 18 year old cat, who I’ve had since I myself was 18, has been diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer, and a rare one at that. She isn’t showing any signs of the lung cancer itself, which is good, but she’s got a wound on her paw that we’ve been trying to get to heal for the last 6 months. The vet now thinks that the tissue around the wound has cancer in it and that is making it not heal properly.
This girl is my baby. I’ve had her forever and we’re a team. I’ve tried to mentally prepare for losing her for years now, because she’s getting very old, but I still burst into tears if I try to think about it.
This cancer is not treatable with chemotherapy, for which I’m grateful. I would not want to have to make the decision whether or not to treat her with chemo at her age. Right now it’s all about quality of life. If either I or my vet (a family friend) feels that she is no longer living a life worth living, then we will have her put down. Until then we just want to make her as comfortable as possible.
I’m buying a baby-style sling on Amazon so that I can carry her around with me, because right now all she wants to do is lie in my lap and purr, so having her with me all the time would be nice.
So everybody send good wishes to Ding, the world’s biggest trooper. Ding!
(the shirts/dresses she is wearing were to keep her from messing with a wound she had on her chest that she would not leave alone–we’re not just mean people.)
Well, that sucks. I’m sorry for your kitty. I just lost my 15 year old big guy to oral cancer. He acted fine, even with a big tumor in his mouth, right up until a few days before he died. He was eating and drinking (although he’d lost a lot of weight) and jumping to his favorite spot on the kitchen shelf/bar where he would guard his food bag and reach out and whack you if you didn’t stop to scratch his head and take pity on his starving self (after being fed not 10 minutes previously). He would gaze at his food bag across the way on top of a pantry and then look at you and meow quite pitifully. He would also literally knock to come in from outside. He’d jump up on the railing by the back door and lean over and knock on the window with his big paw.
When he stopped eating on a Sunday, I knew it wouldn’t be long. I made an appt with the vet for Tuesday, but Monday he seemed to really rally - spent the whole afternoon outside sunning himself in various spots, even jumped up to his spot. So I canceled the appointment Tuesday morning, but that afternoon, I found him nearly unconscious. He was quiet and not observably in pain and I decided there was no reason to put him through the trauma of going to the vet. I made him comfortable in a makeshift bed in front of the kitchen heat duct and he slept quietly until about 10pm, when I came in and he made a certain movement - anyone who’s seen an animal at his last knows what I mean- and his breathing became labored and as I patted him and told him how much I loved him, he just slipped away, in the comfort of his own home. I’m so glad I ended up canceling that appt. He was one cool cat and we loved him dearly and I’m so grateful he passed in peace. I hope the same for your beloved kitty.
Aww, Ding is gorgeous. I send many warm wishes your way.
I just lost my baby of almost ten years on Monday after a 4-month battle with liver cancer. Same as you, we opted not to go with chemo (which may not have done any good anyway) and she still lasted three times longer than expected. It sometimes got stressful wondering when “the time” would come, but I am glad we had lots of snuggles and scritches until it did.
Missed the edit window, but I wanted to add this bit…
I did a lot of “pre-grieving” once we heard the diagnosis, so much so I wondered if I would have anything left when she was finally gone. So as painful as it is, the mental preparation you are doing is probably helpful. Just don’t worry about whether you’re feeling the right things, or dealing with it appropriately. The feelings will come and go, and it will be harder some days and easier others. There’s no wrong way to go through this difficult time. But in the end you will go on with years and years worth of wonderful memories.
Take lots of photos! I still look at Stacie’s every day. Even though it is sad, I’m glad I have them (and about 1000 more my SO took that I haven’t managed to put on Flickr yet!)
I have to share two stories, even though probably nobody cares. Ding is extremely “fraidy cat” scared and always has been. When she was younger she was the cat none of our friends knew we had, you know? She has always been extremely timid, but at the same time she has this humongous heart and this driving need to be friends and show love. When they were both under a year old and my other cat Milo was spayed, we put her in a bed in the kitchen. Milo was the opposite of Ding–fearless and bitchy. And when she was recovering from surgery she was bitchier than ever. If anyone came into the kitchen she’d start to growl and hiss.
Well, Ding was worried about her. We’d be watching TV or something and hear Milo start to go off in the kitchen. WTF we’d say, and go check it out. Inevitably it would be Ding, halfway across the room, walking in slow motion, flinching every step of the way, braving her way toward her good friend even though it was very scary with the hissing and growling.
She’s like that. She will wince and flinch and approach you anyway even though she’s scared to death. It was like that the first time she let Dominic touch her, when he was a baby. She was so scared of him! Babies are loud and unpredictable, but she was so curious and wanted to make friends soooo bad. This is a picture of that moment: http://gallery.opalcat.com/gallery/Ding/first_encounter
She forced herself to let him touch her. You could see how scared she was but she didn’t run away. He’s almost 13 now and they’re such good friends. They bonded so strongly. She used to sleep in his bed every night (not so much anymore because she isn’t always up for the stairs). He sleeps on a trundle bed now, so she doesn’t have to jump to get up there if she does feel like doing the stairs. We have a ramp so she can get onto the couch easily.
I’m so sorry! My Ulysses is about 10, and after reading about Rachel’s Stacie dying recently, I have been worrying about the day that I will lose my lil’ boy.
I lost my Smokey four years ago to kidney failure: she was also 18, and I’d had her since I was 15. So I kind of know what you’re going through – I say “kind of” because of couse the experience is different for everyone. Her illness was sudden: one day I noticed that she wasn’t eating, and 1-2 weeks later the vet was putting her down. It remains the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even though I knew that she was suffering and it was time.
I think that you, too, are doing right by your baby, and that you’ll also have the strength to do the right thing when the time comes.
I’m sorry, OpalCat. My beloved little Russian Blue, Meep, left us about a year and a half ago at only 5 years old, 8 months after being diagnosed with lymphoma. We were devastated, but I find that the comments about “pre-grieving” were spot-on. It’s never easy, but hopefully the time you had with Ding will make it a little more bearable. She’s a lovely kitty.
One thing that helped us was to get a little book and just start writing down all the memories we had about Meep, one to a page. I still read through it occasionally and cry (and laugh a little too–she could be a silly girl).
Wishing Ding all the best–as long and happy a life as possible, and a peaceful and gentle passing with her loved ones nearby when the time comes.
One thing I’m very thankful for is that our vet is a friend, and does house calls. In the end if she doesn’t slip away on her own, and we do have to put her down, he may be able to do it here at the house, so that her last memories aren’t of the super-scary car ride (she hates the car!!) and the vet’s office. It’s also nice to know that she’s getting seen by the vet at least once a week, because they come over socially and he always takes a look at her.
Good to hear about your vet–we were going to do that as well…had made the appointment, actually, to have the vet come over, but Meep had other ideas and we ended up having to take her in that morning instead of waiting for the afternoon. I hope Ding can pass peacefully at home when her time comes.
That’s exactly what I did: my vet was strictly mobile, and she came to the house to put 'Moke down. She was awesome, and I’m hoping she’ll be my vet again when I get a puppy this fall.
