Caturday: A Cat Family Story

 


With rescued street cats (we have 6 of them, mostly older ones), the things inside them that are always unknown in the beginning start to show up as they grow older. Jack is the simplest and healthiest—and youngest. Just missing an eye. Happy Cat has recurring skin cancer. Wooper has IBS and asthma. Bobolink (Boulder) has feline AIDS. Simone si reacting positively to a new medicine, injected once a month, for arthritis; after 16 years she is now jumping up on the bed and snuggling in with me for the night, which she was unable to do with just cosequin. She also has two cysts that cannot be removed without surgery, and the vet considers the surgery at her age too risky so we do at-home management of the cysts. And then there is Snyezhka.
Snyezhka survived breast cancer—discovered four years ago and in remission for the past two. We thought she was in good shape until four months ago when lung cancer struck. The immunotherapy did not work, and she has been just on Metacam, an NSAIDS. Lung cancer in cats does not have a good prognosis. She had been doing okay until this month, when two weeks ago, she had great difficulty breathing (turned out to be pneumonia – from weakened lungs, I guess). I slept all night with her in the living room in front of the vaporizer until I could get her into the vet’s office, where she was put immediately on oxygen. Then, the following week, a week ago Friday, she collapsed. Rolled off the top of the couch onto the cushions, gathered her wits and staggered a few steps, then rolled onto the floor, again gathering her wits and staggering under the coffee table, where she lay panting for some minutes. ER said bring her in. There, they discovered the lung cancer had grown and spread to the liver and spleen. Pretty dim prognoses for those, too. Thursday, we followed up with her oncologist. Diagnosis: lymphoma which is spreading the cancer everywhere. Response: continue the NSAIDS, add a weekly chemo jab, and observation—and enjoy whatever time we have left with her; she does want to sleep in my lap a lot. I guess this is sort of like hospice for people except we are the “hospice staff.”

"We" includes Happy Cat. Vets are always amazed at how bonded our six cats are, especially when we bring a couple of them in together for treatment, given that they came from the streets at differing times and differing ages and represent differing breeds. No question about the bonding, though. When we brought stressed-out Snyezhka back from the oncologist on Thursday, she rushed out of the carrier to Happy Cat for comforting. Happy Cat immediately began grooming and comforting her, spent nearly 15 minutes doing that. Then, he lay down beside for a long time afterward.

For more Caturday posts, click HERE, and/or read more posts about Happy Cat or Snyezhka.


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