(Apologies for the crappy quality, cellphone camera)
Honey’s somewhere in the vicinity of 15 years old. Back in the mists of time she turned up, a tiny kitten, mewling on my grandparents’ doorstep. She was half feral, hated all other cats and eventually had to be converted to an indoor-only kitteh when she kept getting into fights and got hit by a car at least once. She’s named Honey for a bizarre naming convention in my grandparents’ household where all pet names end in a ‘Y’ and for the gold-yellow patches in her fur.
I inherited her about five-ish years ago, when my grandparents sold up and moved into a gated community. No pets. So she came to live with us.
She rules the house with an iron paw. If she wants your lap, she will get in your lap. She eats scraps off our plates, sleeps on my husband’s pillow and crawls under the covers when SHE wants to be warm.
But she’s lovely and affectionate. She’ll nuzzle and cuddle you, and she’s got this funny little purr. It sounds a bit like a rusty gate, there’s this squeakiness to it. And she’s a talker. Everything you say gets an answer.
She’s pretty healthy for a cat of her age. A bit fussy with food. A bit stiff on cold mornings. She seems to be getting cataracts, but can still see okay.
On the weekend I found some blood on the floor in the kitchen and loungeroom. It was mixed with a lot of saliva. Husband reported his pillow was saturated when he came to bed, and investigation showed more blood and more saliva. But she was eating, didn’t seem to be in pain and seemed to be frisky.
I took her to the vet on Monday night. Her teeth need cleaning, but at the back of the left of her mouth there’s a lesion, and one of the teeth appears to possibly be broken. The vet needs to put her under a general to have a look in her mouth, she can’t get her mouth open far enough to see properly.
There’s two possibilities. One is that it’s a broken tooth that’s cut the gum. That’ll be an extraction plus a clean. About $500.
Option two is a tumor on her jaw. Option two is where we say goodbye to Honey, because the vet reports they’d have to remove part of her jaw to get the tumor, and cats of her age usually don’t fare well after surgery like that.
So I’ll be booking her in for her general and the checkup on Tuesday next week. I’ve never hoped for tooth decay so hard in my life…
for ya.