An Unexpected Goodbye

 We have been living with the threat of saying goodbye to one of the monsters for a while now. After all, DumDum is almost twenty, probables has some health issues and is definitely a cranky old man of a cat. Having something happen to him is almost expected. However, the girls George and Sasha are only 10.5 years old, hardly senior cats in our minds - and quite healthy. Or so we though. Sometimes health issues are hidden until it is truly too late and there’s nothing to do but say goodbye. 

At the end of March, I was feeding them their little wet food snack. And I noticed my chunky girl Sasha was just picking at her food. She’s usually quite quick eating so that was a surprise. We watched her over the weekend and realized that she wasn’t really eating much at all. Nothing like normal, just a nibble of dry food here and there. I did the fully non-scientific method of weighing here - held her and stood on the scale, then weighed just me. And she was down a pound or so from the last I’d weighed her. Huh. Nick was telling me not to worry, but in my mind the decreased appetite and weight loss meant a trip to the vet was in order. Her front canines looked pretty bad - it was most likely her teeth that were the issue. Or so I thought. 

Vet trip 1 - my poor Sasha girl wasn’t happy with the whole affair. The vet was super nice though and Sasha was surprisingly mellow. We did blood work to see if there was anything wrong - and nothing showed up. The vet looked at her teeth and agreed that the canines looked a little crappy. But he didn’t want to schedule an dental work yet. The first step in his mind was some anti nausea meds to see if maybe she’d eaten something off. Then if that wasn’t effective, some pain meds to rule out the teeth bothering her. The one thing we didn’t do was a full body X-ray to see if there was something else brewing that we couldn’t see. We got home, got some snuggles and she nibbled a little bit. Not a lot. I called the vet the next morning to give them an update and we decided to try the pain meds. If they worked and she started eating a little more then it was pretty clear that is was the teeth that was the issue. 

And there seemed to be some success. She nibbled a little more over the next few days, so we scheduled the dental work. Vet trip 2 meant me bringing my grey girl there and leaving her while I was at work. I was so nervous about that because when I’d had Isis’s teeth cleaned years ago she’d had some major complications with the intubation. Would that happen again? To my relief, no complications with Miss Sasha. They pulled two teeth, cleaned the rest and wrapped her up with a transdermal pain patch. Perhaps I should have paid more attention when the vet said the two teeth they pulled don’t usually cause cats much pain. I was just happy we were hopefully on the healing curve and my chunky weirdo would soon start chowing down again. At first there were good signs. She was eating the soft foods I’d gotten - but not eating all that much still. I chalked it up to pain from the tooth extractions. 

Vet trip 3 - we’d pulled the pain patch as directed and Sasha had basically stopped eating again. Her fur was looking a little ragged as well, which was unusual for my girl. Her fur was usually the cleanest and neatest of the clowder and she loved being brushed. She also wasn’t playing at all. She would just sit and stare at the toys. We went back to the vet for the post dental checkup and to try another pain patch. After all she was eating a little with it so… we left the vet with a new pain patch, some more anti nausea meds and antibiotics for what looked like a slight infection in her canine socket. Fingers crossed that we would start seeing some improvement. I didn’t cancel the originally scheduled dental check for a week later though…

Vet trip 4 - now a month after we’d first noticed Sasha wasn’t eating. No improvement with the pain patch, anti nausea meds or antibiotics. She was still not eating and looking skinnier by the day. I felt like I was watching her slowly fade away with the light leaving her eyes. So back to the vet we went. Nick went with me this time and we got the X-rays I didn’t get the first time. Since I woke in medicine, I know that when the doc comes in with some text books, things aren’t good. And they weren’t. There was something unusual on the X-ray and they couldn’t figure it out with just the plain films. There was a mass in her abdomen - it could be on the spleen, which was the best case scenario. Or it could be the stomach which would be the worst case scenario. The spleen would be an easy surgery to remove. The stomach on the other hand….

Time to schedule the ultrasound to see what was going on. The vet made some calls, I got on the schedule for a day later. I picked up some drugs from the vet to give Sasha before we headed to the specialist so she was calm. And the we waited. I had some hope to hold onto, but in my head I know we weren’t going to get good news. It was a long drive to Fruita with Sasha crying in the carrier. Once at the specialist, Sasha made herself comfortable in my lap and we waited. As a fit-in appointment, I was fine waiting. Prolonging what I had a feeling was the news. Sasha was definitely doped up and let them shave her entire belly for the ultrasound. Then came the scan. I was holding Sasha the entire time, watching. The doc carefully scanned her entire abdomen, keeping his voice calm. There was a slight pause in one section, then he kept moving. When he returned to the area he’d paused at before, it was time for the news. The spleen looked normal. The stomach however, was fully involved with a mass encompassing nearly the entire stomach. There was nothing that could be done. The tech helping handed me the box of tissues as the vet went over the results and the options. “If she was my cat, I would be planning comfort care”

Comfort care aka hospice while making plans for her to cross the rainbow bridge. I called Nick in tears. I’d been right all along with my feeling that something was wrong. It was just far far worse then I’d anticipated. I was given the info for a vet that specialized in at home services. Nick took over from there, scheduling everything and handling all the details. Sooner then I wanted, but maybe not soon enough, it was time to say goodbye.