I realized I never gave you closure on the sick kitty. To refresh your memory, in December there were subtle signs that something was wrong, the vet couldn’t find anything but I could hear something in Caramel’s throat. We ended up in an emergency animal hospital five days later on New Year’s Day. It appeared to be a bad cold. They did a fortune’s worth of testing. No diagnosis. Another five days went by and the cat was obviously ill.

Finally a call from the vet at the emergency hospital indicating there was a huge cyst in Caramel’s throat and thyroid cells in the fluid. Caramel was on meds for hyperthyroidism. All of these changes seemed to be in effect from the time they upped the dose, in September. Things were getting confusing. The vet at the hospital called our vet. There was no sign of cancer in the fluid biopsy.

We brought the cat back several times to our vet and each time the cyst was aspirated and fluid removed; this was causing pressure on the trachea and the esophagus: the cat was being choked!

First, 17 ccs of fluid. The next visit, a few weeks later, 35 ccs of fluid…eventually 45 ccs of fluid.

That is a tremendous amount of fluid in a little cat’s throat. I decided to take a chance and have the cyst, which was allegedly on her thyroid removed. She survived. It was a good thing we decided to do this as the cyst was not even deflating when drained and …

The HUGE cyst was not attached to the thyroid but they removed it anyway; cats have 2 thyroid glands. The lab report indicated that the cyst was one of two known in any cat and WAS cancerous. That once excised, it should not return. This gives my little old cat a fighting chance. It was a hard recuperation. But, she eats now, has gained back some weight, seems more engaged, can hear better; she was getting tons of fluid in her ear and there is less now.

ALL of Caramel’s kittens grew up and got cancer. She had a total of six. The two I took in, both had cancer, one had osteosarcoma as does the one my neighbor has. Genetics.  Caramel may end up being the last of her line.

I’ve spent endless hours at the vet. Here are some photos I took.

That’s Caramel with one of the great people at the vet, having a tête-à-tête; Caramel wouldn’t eat and this wonderful woman told her that she had her thyroid out, too, and that it was lousy. Then, she spoon-fed the kitty.

The little boy is my vet’s son. I oft go in the back and visit the patients. This little boy picked up the kitty and said, “I love this cat. She’s blind. My dad is going to operate on her.”

The vet tech brought her Pomeranian to work. The rest of the guests are patients.

My recovering kitty.