Oct 7, 2012

 

My morning began with worry. Play is a very difficult cat to get into a carrier. We had a 1:00 pm appointment at The Blue Pearl Animal Hospital to have a sonogram. There has been no improvement in eating, no response to treats, just all that drinking. In short, no change, just some minor hallucination on my part. Play has been spending most of his recent days in a little shelf where no one would bother him. He usually would hobble out, slower than usual if he heard the vitamin and treat bags but even his favorite food and treats were no longer tempting. He couldn’t eat.

I had a pot of chicken boiling as I got ready. Kitty-chicken-soup was the one last thing he would lick.

I was relieved yet stunned to find I could pull Play out of his spot without a protest and get him into the carrier. Fifty percent of my chore was done.

In the car, I sat with him in the back. He nuzzled my fingers through the carrier grill. Not a peep out of him.

 

The Blue Pearl Hospital was clean and professional. A young lady technician filled out some papers and asked if Play was “friendly.” “Well, if we can’t contain him, the doctor will come out and  explain that he needs to be anesthetized and all that will cost blah blah more.”

“Do what you need to do.” I said.

No one came out to talk to me. Apparently Play was cooperative. Without any anesthesia this little guy who used to be a terror, had his whole underside shaved, scanned and samples were needle-extracted from the fluid in his body cavity.

The technician couldn’t tell me anything but I already knew in my heart. She handed me the cat and two labeled vials of yellow fluid.

The second part of the trip was to our vet; it was his job to give me the news. He had spoken to the doctor at Blue Pearl. We put the cat in the carrier on the exam table and we were told the news, the news that was already pounding in my heart.

“The cancer spread … different cancer from the leg … tumors … became a massive tumor…took over the interior of the body … there’s nothing left of him … no intestines … kidneys are OK … we never thought … it spread so fast … there’s no fight left in him.” He added, “I never knew a cat that had two cancers.”

So this poor little guy has had diabetes. He then got an extremely aggressive cancer of the leg bone. The leg is amputated. It doesn’t heal for two months because of the diabetes so he has to stay at the vet. He comes home and lives another five months while that cancer and another cancer eat him alive inside. Yet, his eyes always stayed bright.

“I can’t take him home,” I said. “This is too much, this is torture and suffering. it wouldn’t be fair to him, there is nothing left.” Everyone agreed. The vet techs and vets who were so kind taking care of him for all those days gave me a hug. Said they were sorry. Everyone felt awful.

Then it hit me. I couldn’t stop crying. He was only a little cat that came to my back door with his mother and brother. A little stray family that would wait patiently for a few scraps of food, even in the snow. By January, 2005 they were in my home distracting me from my own then recent cancer episode. They were the best medicine.

 

 

And by May 29, 2014, at about 3:20 pm, Play was in kitty heaven. I didn’t stay for the needle with the pink fluid. I didn’t ask for the ashes. I had to go sit down. The passing was peaceful. He was already half gone. Exhausted. He knew.

 

When I got home with the empty carrier, Ampersand (who had the eye problem and was at the vet’s for two months, too) and the mother cat, Caramel, came to sniff and look. They were confused.

So am I.

For over a year I had to be home to administer insulin by needle. I worried all the time about Play’s health. But all the worrying doesn’t stop cancer, not in people nor in pets.

Finally, his pain, discomfort and hunger are finished. He used to have such a ravenous appetite; to see him walk away from food was a heartbreak. But at this point, he was hobbling. He was done.

I know I’ll be seeing a lot of him out of the corner of my eye, just around the usual treat time. And I know I’ll be feeling him jumping up to sit with me on the couch.

 

And then there were two: Ampersand and his mother Caramel