I had to put my sweet baby girl to sleep this morning. She was diagnosed with Lymphoma back in January, just a couple weeks after I lost her brother, Harley (they were littermates) to kidney failure.
All the research I did online at the time said that without treatment, the prognosis was weeks, maybe a couple months after diagnosis. We immediately started chemo, which she responded to nicely. Until the after the 2nd treatment when she developed a very nasty URI. I stopped chemo and got her through that, part of which consisted of a full blood panel. Turns out that she was FIV+. News to me since I had her vet records from birth to 3 years (when I got her) and she and Harley were tested and found negative. Since she was strictly indoors and never around any other animal but her brother, I can only assume it was a case of a false negative, which can happen if you test under a year old. They must have had it since birth.
It was always my believe that Tawney’s cancer was kicked into action, so to speak, by the shock of losing her brother. I was not ready to lose another cat so soon, so after she was fully recovered from her URI, we tried Elspar, which is another, less invasive, form of chemo. She didn’t respond, so her vet (whom I adore) and I decided to schedule a surgery for her to remove one of the tumors and send it to pathology, see what they would recommend.
The result of that was her cancer was becoming slightly more aggressive and that further surgery wasn’t an option. We tried on last form of high powered chemo (a pill form). After the 2nd course she stopped responding. It pretty much became a waiting game from then and I knew (rationally, anyway) that it was just a matter of time. And that it was going to be sooner rather than later.
Last weekend she took a turn and didn’t want to eat, she had quite a few new tumors and the ones she’d had before were larger, among other little signs that something wasn’t right: most especially weight loss and eating kitty litter from the catch tray. Took her to the vet last Thursday for her check up where I found out it was worse than I thought: her kidneys were shrinking, there were tumors starting to form in her intestinal tract, and she was slightly anemic (hence the litter eating). There was one last thing to try, which was a more potent cortisone. If that worked, it would buy her (me) some more time. If not, then it was time.
She didn’t respond. I called her vet on Saturday and she said she would come in on Tuesday (her normal day off) and put her to sleep. I spent this weekend dealing with my guilt of potentially robbing her of even one hour of quality life, but I knew that it was merely a matter of days, maybe a week or two, and that if I did wait, she would end up suffering. I couldn’t do that to her - it would be only because I wasn’t ready to let her go (I’m still not). So I did what she deserved.
Today, after watching her eat less and less over the weekend, watching her spend most of her time in the computer room by herself. She would go back after a couple mintues if I brought her to where ever I was (except for bed at night, where she would sleep by my pillow all night as she always did). I knew by the end of the weekend that it wasn’t too soon, that I wasn’t robbing her, and that she was ready.
I took her to the vet and she was calm and just sat on my lap until it was time. I held her in my arms and she rested her head on me and drifted away. I will be having her cremated; I picked out a lovely urn for her and cleared off space on the shelf next to Harley’s urn. I went into work afterwards because I knew being at home was going to be way hard. And I was right. I came home and had a couple hour cleaning frenzy trying to keep my mind off how empty my home feels without my baby girl. Didn’t work - I was sobbing while sweeping, mopping, scrubbing the tub, doing dishes, etc. It’s amazing how a small nine pound animal can leave such a huge void. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to sleep tonight without her right there next to me.
I love you, my Tawney - you’re free and with Harley now. Thank you for all the love, joy, and comfort you gave me for the last 9 years.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=3940330093 – pictures of Tawney