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2013-08-26 - 11:00 p.m.
Things are not well in the cat world. My Bear is down to his last weeks (days?). On Saturday I took him to the oncologist where it was decided that the best thing to do at that point would be to drain the fluid in his chest (and send it out for analysis so I can get a definite diagnosis). This was supposed to make him feel a bunch better. So, they said it would take about an hour and a half and I was feeling all happy and relieved that I could do something to make him feel better and I went out to Whole Foods and chatted up the wine guy, bought some expensive incense and a bunch of junk food (whole foods style junk food!) to make myself feel even better and returned to the vet to find out that the procedure kind of backfired and that Bear had basically passed out while they were taking the fluid out. They couldn't proceed with the fluid removal (which means that it is likely that I will still not get a definite diagnosis) because he kept passing out so they put him in oxygen and then sent him home with me. When I got him home he was basically limp. I pulled him from the cage and he just lay there. When I had taken him in that morning he was fine. So I have no idea why taking fluid from his chest would make him worse? I really don't get that, nobody seems to get that. It really should have made him better. Anyway. He then urinated all over himself and I immediately called the vet back and she told me that she thought he was going to die. That the procedure had been too much for him, that the cancer (still not definitely diagnosed) was more progressed than we had thought. She said I could bring him back to the ER where they could put him on oxygen and we could see what happened but that he was surely going to "pass". I chose no. I chose to take him directly outside to his favorite spot where I sat with him for the next four hours. When it got dark I brought him inside to the spare bedroom and locked the other cats out. He was still just laying there. Some time around five in the morning he decided to get up. And eat. Oh, Bear. I thought I was going to get "lucky" with this and have him pass away naturally in his favorite spot. But no. He's better today. And by better I mean he's up and around and eating and drinking and reacting to catnip (not as enthusiastically as he used to but reacting nevertheless). He's not cured...he has terminal cancer. But at least for today and tomorrow and hopefully the next few days I don't have to think about putting him to sleep. I know it's coming...but I'm just not ready yet. God damn it. I have him on steroids right now and after the pathology results come back on Wednesday I'll be getting some sort of pain meds for him. I'm hoping this is lymphoma and not pancreatic cancer. Lymphoma will give me a couple months, pancreatic cancer will give me a couple more days, maybe a couple more weeks. I've notified the rest of the cats that they are all to pass away in their sleep of very old age. I can't do this. I'm a disaster. I am also going to buy an oxygen tent. For real. I need four hundred dollars and then I am buying the tent. It would have been very helpful in the past and I am not going to wish I had one ever again. Bear would probably love to be in the oxygen tent right now. In other news...I don't think there is other news. |
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