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Words fail me. I can’t eat. I lost 5 lbs in 4 days. I don’t have the brain-function to work. I can’t sleep. I’m terrified that I’m going to find my cat, Gracie dead.
Every morning I wonder if I’ll see Gracie lying strangely still on her heated bed in the living room, where she spends most of her day. Every morning I hope I'm wrong and that she’ll be okay, sitting up, hungry. Even better, will she be in the kitchen meowing at me to be fed? Or worse, will she be quietly sitting in a “meatloaf” position that tells me she’s in pain and doesn’t want to eat even though her last meal was so many hours ago.
The ups and downs of Gracie’s health crisis are taking a toll, while Sam and I are working so hard to get a definitive diagnosis of what has been causing Gracie’s hemorrhaging and serious anemia. We’ve seen an oncologist, three general practitioners, and two Board Certified specialists. We thought we had a diagnosis of biliarycystadenoma and while that may be partially true, it wouldn’t cause Gracie’s other issues.
A week ago Gracie wasn’t doing as well as I’d hoped, so I brought her in to see Dr. Larry. Her blood work showed the anemia was back and Dr. Larry could feel that Gracie’s liver still felt enlarged. I was shocked and scared. He asked if we could do yet another ultrasound to find out what was going on. I was reluctant because I didn’t think we’d find anything out, but he reminded me that we’d see if the bleeding was worse and if the liver looked bigger or smaller. We had to act fast, but I was already exhausted and couldn’t face the idea of making the hour-long drive. Sam had worked all night to make up for all the time he’s been on Vet runs with me and unable to work. How could we make this happen?
Super-Deb and I made calls, trying to find a place to do the ultrasound. In the end I realized we had to go see Dr. Sean, who did Gracie’s previous procedure. I was able to get an appointment two days later, but what I wasn’t ready for was that we ended up being at the hospital all day.
Gracie’s appointment went quickly, but Dr. Sean strongly felt we needed to meet with an Internist to discuss his findings. It was 11:30 AM, but she couldn’t see us until 3:00 PM. Did we want to wait? Neither of us wanted to drive over an hour back home, turn around and come back so we opted to wait. Sitting in a waiting room with nothing but a blaring TV and patients with their pets in different states of decline was not my idea of a good time. Sam and I both just wanted to sleep. Gracie was in her carrier between us. We had the top unzipped and we were both gently petting her. I knew she wasn’t strong enough to run off, so we each took turns closing our eyes for a few minutes at a time.
Dr. Carolyn finally came to get us a little after 3 PM. She seemed very clever and was eager to give us her take on what she thought was Gracie’s issue. We were all looking at Gracie’s liver, but no one bothered with the fact that Gracie’s spleen also had a strange shape that was seen on ultrasound. Something was wrong with it, too and no one had even considered it as part of the equation. Dr. G carefully described how Mast Cell cancer could be in the spleen and be the culprit. Gracie could also have hemolytic anemia or a portal shunt that basically meant something was blocking blood flow from Gracie’s digestive tract into her liver.
She further explained that she’d like to do another blood test on Gracie to make sure she could clot, that she’d do another type of blood test (I forget what it’s called) that measures her blood differently and would tell us if she had the hemolytic anemia. Lastly she wanted to do a needle aspirate of Gracie’s spleen to rule cancer in or out. I was having a bad flashback to a few weeks prior when we’d done the needle aspirate of Gracie’s liver and Gracie was in terrible shape afterwards.
Dr. Carolyn added that Gracie should get a transfusion and stay overnight with the theory that the new blood would help her feel better and give us more time to find out what was going on. Once again we’d have to wait until the following Monday for the results. We just had to keep her going until we had more information.
We decided it all made sense and agreed to let her take Gracie. The bill for that day was $1600.00.
The traffic was terrible going home and we didn’t arrive until nearly 7 PM, to a house full of anxious cats who needed to be fed right away. We finally got everyone settled when my phone rang. It was Dr. Carolyn-
She asked me if something went wrong did I want them to do CPR on Gracie? I said YES if it was appropriate and if she could be revived, but why was I being asked this? Then Dr. Carolyn dropped the bomb: Gracie was not doing well at all. The needle aspirate was done quickly but now Gracie was flat. She was rushing the transfusion and hoped it would be enough to help Gracie recover, but that she wasn’t sure and that it didn’t look too promising.
My gut hit the floor and I tried to choke back the tears. I told her to go; to take care of Gracie and not bother with me on the phone. I hung up and told Sam the bad news. What made it unbearable is that we just did what we promised we would NOT do to Gracie—let her die alone, without us, surrounded by strangers. I asked Sam if we should drive back to Middletown, to Gracie, to be there for her. I knew that even if we left right away, odds are we’d be too late. If she survived, they’d want to keep her there overnight so we decided to stay home.
Less than an hour later, Dr. Carolyn called. Gracie had bounced back and was eating and up on her feet! Sam looked at me while I got the news. I gave him the thumbs up sign while I tried to choke back the tears, telling Dr. Carolyn to please give Gracie a kiss from us and that we’d see her in the morning.
I hung up the phone and sobbed. I cried so hard I started to hyperventilate. My heart felt really wonky and I knew I was in trouble. Sam sat near me and put his arm around me and helped me calm down. I couldn't stop saying; We almost lost Gracie, but we didn’t. She's still with us. I was so grateful and relieved.
Gracie didn’t come home the next morning. Dr. Carolyn wanted to keep her longer so we picked her up that night. Gracie seemed perkier and even ate for me when we got her home. I hoped the effects of the transfusion would last, but I also knew that Gracie’s updated blood work showed she didn’t bounce back as well as Dr. Carolyn would have hoped. I have the paperwork but I don’t have the heart to even look at it. Knowing what that number is didn’t change that Gracie survived the procedure. Frankly, I didn’t know if I could take much more. I just wanted to sleep and feel certain that when I woke up Gracie would still be with us.
Part 7 is next...where we have to make a life or death decision for Gracie and I sure could use some advice on what to do.
The Veterinary Cancer Center is enormous, clean, elegant with a sophisticated interior design. It’s the biggest facility of its kind in the country. We're so lucky to live nearby. The staff is impeccably dressed, smart, capable. You clearly get what you pay for because you can feel that this is “the place” to be if your pet is sick. It was nearly 3pm, the time of our appointment. The door opened and I looked up. There was Katherine, standing in the doorway with a silly smirk on her face.
I went over to her and gave her a big hug. It had been months since we’d last seen each other. She and Sam said their hellos, then she bent down and met Gracie, who looked up at her and meowed softly. Having a friend there helped me forget to be scared. We made jokes, as we often do when we’re worried or having a bad time. She agreed that Gracie didn’t look “that bad” but we all knew how cats can hide illness. At that point I’d take any positive news. Did I dare hope for any more?
The Tech came to escort us into Exam Room 3 so we bid Katherine farewell with a promise to update her as soon as we had news. The last time we’d been in that exam room was with Fred. I didn’t want to think about that again.
The Tech got Gracie’s history, even though they had copies of her records. I told them my thoughts that Gracie getting so sick right after her dental told me that the dental had something to do with it. She’d been given FOUR different antibiotics before and after her procedure. We’d done it because she lost her appetite and we thought the meds were the culprit, not the possibility that the meds were destroying her liver because it was full of cysts. It couldn’t handle the load from the sedation, pain-killers, antibiotics and appetite stimulants she’d been given. To me it added up to be cysts, not cancer, but I was just a mom worried about her cat and cysts weren’t something cats died from so that’s what I hoped it would be.
Dr. Post entered the room with a second Vet at his side. Clearly she was observing while he did his thing. Dr. Post examined Gracie and spoke with us about her history. He nodded his head as he listened. When I told him about how the Vet would not do the transfusion he made the most sour-puss expression I’ve ever seen. He was far too refined to say the Vet was a jerk, but you could tell that Gracie SHOULD have been transfused. He said it WOULD have helped her and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t done.
Before my blood could boil he moved on, saying that he wrote the paper on something called biliarycystadenoma, so he knows them well. That he felt aside from the fluid in her abdomen, that she was presenting as cystic, not a cat with cancer.
Depending on the cysts they usually did surgery to remove them, but if they were too diffuse they wouldn’t. He couldn’t be 100% certain just now, but wanted to do a quick check of Gracie’s hematocrit to see if she was still seriously anemic, then devise a plan after that.
So Gracie might REALLY REALLY REALLY NOT have CANCER. The 10% chance it was cysts just became more like 90%.
Sam and I looked at each other and smiled, too stunned to say a word. I gave the okay to do the test. We were told to wait in the lobby and they’d be with us shortly. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
We waited.
Dr. Post came out with his posse. He greeted us warmly and said that Gracie’s hematocrit was up to 20. I threw my arms up and yelled YES! Dr. Post was taken aback by my outburst, but I was thrilled. In three days Gracie’s body was producing enough blood cells to stave off the anemia. She still had a way to go to be normal but this was a VERY GOOD SIGN. Dr. Post asked us to come back in two weeks. We’d do another CBC and re-evaluate her then. Did we have a diagnosis? No, but we were getting closer.
All I knew was, Gracie was alive and Gracie was probably going to live another two weeks.
In the past four days I’d had four Vets tell me that Gracie either needed to be put down or that she wasn’t going to be with us much longer and to prepare. We could have gone that route and let her go, but we stayed strong. We looked into our cat’s vivid green eyes and we asked her what she wanted. She was critically ill, near death, but she was still Gracie. The flame of life still flickered in her eyes. It took a toll on my health to see her through this, but for the first time in weeks I finally had hope again and this time I could imagine the possibility of better days to come.
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Nine Days Later
The knot in my gut is gone, but I admit I’m on episode 87 of Frasier to keep myself calm. I started working again and getting my life back on track. Though we’ve had some downs, Gracie has mostly been on the up and up. She still sleeps in one small area of the living room on the big oriental rug, but she’s getting on her feet more and more, even meeting me at the door one day, meowing at me to be fed.
Her appetite is not 100% but she’s eating as long as we keep her on her daily meds of Prednisilone and Zofran. She’s purring, grooming herself, using her litter pan, meowing complaints (as she used to do). Yesterday she trotted into the kitchen, tail held high. She carefully jumped onto the bench, then up onto the kitchen table. It was the first jump she’d made in two weeks.
This morning Gracie was very perky. She had her breakfast, then walked over to the sofa where Sam and I were sitting. She looked like she wanted to jump up so I carefully lifted her, placing her next to me. She tried to make herself comfortable by putting her front paws on my leg, half sitting on me and half on the sofa. In her 12 years with me she was never brave enough to sit on my lap. I eased a blanket over my bare legs, then gently lifted her, placing her on my chest. She laid down and rested her head on my chest. She only weighs a little over 8 pounds. I could feel the heat begin to expand between our bodies as Gracie relaxed. I put my head back on the sofa and closed my eyes. In that moment everything I ever dreamed of for Gracie was happening. She was comfortable. She was happy. She was safe.
Monday morning I got up at 5 AM. I didn’t bother Sam, deciding to let him sleep. I walked downstairs, my stomach in a tight knot. I looked around the corner and saw Gracie. She was sitting up. She meowed at me. She was HUNGRY.
I raced over to the kitchen and put some food on a plate, warmed it and added some water so she would stay hydrated. I sat next to her holding the plate in my hands. I noticed she seemed too painful bending over so I held the plate up high and she did better eating that way. The problem was she ate very slowly so I began to cramp up hunched over holding the plate. I didn’t care. She was eating. I knew it was likely just the medication making her do that but I couldn’t help but think that “every bite is a victory.” I knew that good nutrition would possibly help her recover from the anemia and that would go a long way to helping her be comfortable.
I got Gracie brushed, gave her fresh water, and cleaned her litter pan. I found she was ready to eat a small amount every 5 hours or so and I was determined to keep her fed. Whatever she wanted she was going to get. The more she ate, the better for her anemia.
Meanwhile, I was falling apart.
I couldn’t think. It was a joke to try to work and I was working on a design project that may be one of the highlights of my career. The pressure of not tending to my job wasn’t enough to get me into gear. If I had to give up this project, so be it. How could I be creative when my cat was in the next room dying?
I couldn’t concentrate, so reading was out of the question. I didn’t answer emails. I didn’t want to go on Facebook and see more sad stories. I had to force myself to eat something-scrambled eggs was all I could choke down. I couldn’t sit by the TV and eat. Gracie was right there. I couldn’t look at my cat and eat breakfast and I didn’t want the sound of the TV to bother her. I went upstairs and grabbed my old iPad. I sat on the bed with my eggs and started watching Fraiser, a TV-show from the early 1990s. It didn’t require any effort to watch the episodes and there were over 200 of them in the queue. I could zone out and let Kelsey Grammer help me forget about how terrible things were for 22 minutes, though nothing loosened the knot in my gut.
Gracie’s Cytology Report Arrives
I forced myself to check my email inbox. There was a message from Pieper Memorial waiting to be read. I knew it was Gracie’s ultrasound report. I didn’t want to read it, but I had no choice. I opened the file and began to read. Other than words like “and” or “the” all the other words were very long, technical jargon. I believed it said that basically there was a good sample of a cyst taken. That there was activity indicating a reaction to possibly some sort of thing…infection maybe? That a cyst or more had ruptured and was bleeding.
What grabbed me was the following:
“The hepatocytes [liver tissue] present are minimally pleomorphic [bacteria that alter their shape and size in response to environmental conditions], and well-differentiated, with no evidence of neoplasia(benign or malignant cancer).”
Neoplasia=CANCER. NO EVIDENCE OF CANCER.
I showed the report to Connie, to Katherine, to Warren, to Sam, to the folks on the SmallCell Lymphoma Board and they all said the same thing. No cancer is NO CANCER. Could it be true?!
By Monday evening Gracie continued to show signs of perking up. She sat up a little more, looked a little more comfortable. She wasn’t eating a lot but I stopped syringe-feeding her. We had to decide what to do about Tuesday’s appointment. Gracie seemed a bit better but maybe we were kidding ourselves and we still had to do what needed to be done.
Dr. Larry called to go over the cytology results with me. I was so excited that it wasn’t cancer until he said that he HAD to speak with Dr. Sean before he could feel like we were out of the woods and that Gracie had cysts in her liver that weren’t cancer. My joy quickly faded when he said that Dr. Sean might feel his sample wasn’t perfect or that even WITH a good sample that there was still a cancer diagnosis hanging over us. He needed more time to reach Dr. Sean and since Gracie seemed stable, though weak, he would NOT put her down, not if she was showing improvement. She wasn’t ready to leave us just yet.
I was torn in two. I was so glad we didn’t have to let Gracie go, but I still had no answers. It might be a few more days and maybe we were just dragging out the inevitable. That said, every day I could give Gracie meant something even if I was having a hard time handling it. This was not about me. It was about my cat.
Tuesday
Tuesday at 2pm arrived. I was sitting with Gracie, watching her take dainty licks at her food instead of watching Dr. Larry put her down. Starting from this moment on was “bonus time” for us both. I wanted to see her get better. I wanted a WIN! I didn’t want my cat to die soon, but I also didn’t have a lot of hope.
Dr. Larry called again later that day. He’d reached Dr. Sean. Before he said much, I already knew it was bad news. I could tell from Dr. Larry’s tone of voice. He wasn’t his usual jovial self. He was very serious-deadly serious.
He said that although Dr. Sean had gotten a great sample and there was no sign of cancer, that based on her abdominal fluid, the blood in her belly, the many cysts seen on ultrasound that it was likely that this was something very bad. Paraphrasing his conversation he said that Dr. Sean was feeling it was 90% chance it was cancer and 10% chance it was benign cysts. Dr. Larry, always my friend, gave me as much hope as he dared. He said he was 75% sure and maybe only 25% chance it wasn’t malignant.
I asked if we should keep our appointment with the oncologist and he said YES. We needed a diagnosis and Dr. Post was the guy to give that to us. We HAD to keep trying as long as Gracie was stable.
It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I wasn’t surprised, either. Though I hold Dr. Post in VERY high regard, I knew we also had to be prepared for the costs to put us in a place where we couldn’t afford to care for Gracie. I checked all my accounts and decided I could stitch something together. If I had to, I’d take the last bits out of my retirement account, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to go there. I couldn’t be reckless, but I could provide more for a little while longer.
Wednesday
The Veterinary Cancer Center is an hour west, near where my rescue-friend Katherine lives. She and my other dear rescue-friend, Connie had been in contact with me every day, checking on Gracie, offering advice. I told Katherine about our appointment, in case she wanted to meet us at the cancer center. I needed all my friends more than ever as we were about to get the news I’d been dreading for a week.
Part 5 is next.Yes, this is a long story, but imagine having to live through it! And this final chapter is the one where as a writer you dream of being able to write an ending like this.
Later that day, I reached out to my friend Warren, who put me in touch with the folks on the Feline SmallCell Lymphoma Yahoo Message Group. They told me to try a combo of two different anti-emetic drugs that many cancer cats respond well to and that help them regain their appetite. The problem is that they both effect the liver. I called Dr. Larry’s office yet again, asking for more medications. I went back and had a long talk with Dr. Mary, explaining to her why I wanted these drugs, but that I also respected her advice about how dangerous they might be. I knew the folks on the Board focused on cats with cancer and what they were saying made sense. One of the meds, Zofran, had questionable results, but of the two, the other being Cerenia, we decided it would be safer. I can’t tell you how man medications we almost gave Gracie or did give Gracie. I kept a log so I could keep it straight. I was sleeping very little and had completely lost my appetite I was so stressed out. I tried not to second-guess what I was being told, but I had to make sure it made sense. I don’t like to give my cats any drugs and here I was loading Gracie up with them.
Gracie did not like to be pilled, but we had to make it happen. I tried all my tricks but we had to hold her down and struggle to get the medications into her. I felt like I was betraying her by treating her roughly. Immediately after we pilled her I insisted that we spend time brushing her, which she loved, and simply being gentle and loving with her make up for what we’d just done. Gracie seemed to relax and appreciate our efforts.
That night I got a text from a friend. I was feeling so down and lost. I’d given up. She gave me a kick in the behind, reminding me that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to try getting a transfusion done. We’d promised to keep Gracie going for a few more days and it would certainly help her feel so much better. I feared the costs, but knew she was right. If Gracie didn’t make it to Monday and we got the test results and it WAS something treatable I’d never forgive myself.
Tough I couldn’t imagine this not being cancer, I also didn’t want to give up. That’s not me, but I was so beat down I needed that push to keep going. I’d even made an appointment for Gracie to see the oncologist, Dr. Gerald Post, on the following Wednesday, just in case things didn’t go as I feared. We had to keep trying.
Poor Sam. He was scrambling to get some work done and I’d already taken up some much of his time, but I was so buoyed by my friend’s advice that I had to talk to him about getting the transfusion done. I called over to our ER Vet and asked about costs. If I took a few dollars from here and used a credit card or two I could make it happen. We decided to give it one last try.
I called my dear friend Connie who’s had transfusions done on a few of her cats. She told me what to expect and that it could make a big difference. She also said that it might take the full night, into the next morning to have it done and did I want to give up that precious time to Gracie being at the vet or did I want her to be home? She explained that it WOULD help her feel better and that the reason it took so long was that some of the time was spent in cross-matching and typing Gracie’s blood and that sometimes they used a blood donor who is on site at the hospital and it takes time to get the blood from the other cat. I realized that meant another cat was going to help my cat survive. Even though we have Gracie’s daughter here, Petunia is too skittish to sit still for a multi-hour procedure. As I gathered Gracie’s vet records I grabbed a new catnip banana toy. I decided that the donor cat should have a token of my appreciation. You can’t have enough good Karma.
Gracie was very weak and quiet. It only took a few minutes to get to the hospital and within a half hour or so we were seeing the ER Vet on call. We talked to him about our intentions-we just wanted to give our cat good quality of life so that she’d live a few more days-until the test result came in. That was it. We weren’t looking for a cure. We were looking for a way to give her ease her suffering. He agreed that it would help her, but he also was concerned about the fluid in her abdomen. He felt that if it was blood it would not make the transfusion worthwhile. He asked if he could take a sample of the fluid (since removing the fluid was dangerous because it could drop her blood pressure down too low. We could only take a small amount of fluid for that reason) and we agreed.
Once again I was hoping for something-that the fluid was clear, not full of blood. It made me sad to think that the longer this went on, the less I could hope for. I just hoped to give my cat comfort in her final few days.
The ER Vet entered the room holding a vile. He held it out to us and showed us it was full of blood. Gracie was bleeding internally either from a ruptured cyst or from the needle biopsy done a few days before. The blood was fresh so that meant she was actively bleeding. He said a transfusion wouldn’t help her; that emergency surgery might stop the bleeding but if her liver was full of cancer, which we suspected, then it didn’t make sense to put her through that. He said that it might be best if we considered euthanizing her soon because she could either have a heart attack and die or because of the anemia she might simply become weaker and weaker and die in her sleep. He offered that they could “take care of her” in the back right now. Sam and I did not hesitate to answer NO. Gracie was coming home. I was going to syringe-feed her and we were going to stay strong-not just for our benefit. Gracie was still “Gracie.” No, she wasn’t eating, but she had enough quality of life that we knew it wasn’t time. We had to risk it and bring her home and not let her go in this sterile place.
We got Gracie home and I cried yet again. That was it. All hope was lost.
I was so emotionally tapped that I took medication to help me calm down. I have a tiny stash of it to use for when I have to fly somewhere. It’s probably outdated but it was all I had. I could barely breathe I was so distraught, but I had to find a way to continue to be there for Gracie, and the meds let me do a better job.
As I had on Saturday, on Sunday I syringe-fed Gracie. I liquefied raw chicken liver and added it to her food. I hoped the added iron would help her anemia. We gave her all her pills and she surprised us by grooming herself after she was fed. She was very tired and uncomfortable, but at least her belly was full. Sam and I set up shop in the living room, which was where she was resting. We did not leave her alone. I wanted to inflate our air mattress so I could sleep in the living room but I couldn’t find the pump or nozzles. I was so frustrated, but I also realized I had to get at least some sleep and our sofa is not comfortable for naps. I decided I would just sleep for a few hours and get up very early to check on her. I made Sam promise me that I wouldn’t have to go downstairs alone. I didn’t want to find Gracie dead on the floor.
Reluctantly, I dragged myself to bed Sunday night. Before I went upstairs I gave Gracie a kiss and told her I loved her and to not give up.
I think she was listening.
Part 4 is next...Cytology results and the 10% chance it's not what we think it is.
I’d already been tempting Gracie with smelly fish-based cat food or simply tuna water to get something into her. She often either refused or would lap delicately for a few seconds then jerk backward as if she wanted to eat, but it was too painful in her tummy to continue. I made another trip to Choice Pet, where I buy a lot of cat food. I know the manager, Scott, very well. As I drove along the tree-lined roads, I began to cry. Lately, I cried a lot while I was driving because I had time to think about Gracie, about her life, about how I may have failed her, about what might be coming far too soon and how was I going to handle it.
Though I was comforted by the familiar sight of Scott as I entered the store, it was hard not to cry again as I told him the news about Gracie. I asked him to help me find a good variety of food for her. As we read ingredient labels, he began to tell me stories of how his pets had died. I realized he was sharing his life and wanted me to know he understood, but I really didn’t want to hear that. I’d already gotten a number of messages from friends and supporters with similar tales. I couldn’t stand the idea of hearing more, but I had to politely listen, saying I was sorry, when inside I just wanted to scream to everyone to stop with the stories of cats dying tragically and leave me in peace.
I added what I got to my stash of chicken baby food, which is my go-to for sick cats. I knew to gently warm the food to improve the aroma, which would encourage Gracie to eat. I raced back to Dr. Larry’s to pick up appetite stimulants. He’d finally gotten his clinic moved to a new location but things were still in chaos. I hated that my first days at his new place would be marred by the memory of what was happening to Gracie. Would I be the first client to have my cat put down there? I yearned for his old place. It felt like home after being there for 16 years. I didn’t like the new place. It was cold and cavernous. The exam rooms had the same furniture as before. The walls were painted the same color. The doors were the same, but nothing felt right.
Gracie would not eat. I even went against my own nutritional beliefs and offered Gracie dry food moistened with some water. She half-heartedly lapped at it but as with whatever I offered, most of it remained on the plate. Gracie would barely even get up any more so was so weak. I knew she was likely dying and I didn’t think she’d even make it to Monday. I called to make yet another appointment for her with Dr. Larry. I thought we should repeat her CBC to find out if she had an infection brewing or if there was something else we might learn from testing her blood. The appetite stimulant wasn’t working at all. Maybe there was something else we could do.
On Saturday morning we saw Dr. Mary because Dr. Larry was out of town. As much as I admire and like Dr. Mary, with Dr. Larry being gone, also felt like my lifeline was gone, too. If Gracie had to die, I wanted Dr. Larry to be there for her. I wanted him to come to our home and help her pass peacefully. It felt more like family to have him do it and now I was left to hope that Gracie would stay strong a few more days—the irony wasn’t missed. What little I had hoped for, just that my cat would live long enough to have her Vet put her down when he was back in town.
Dr. Mary ran the blood work and it came back with shockingly bad results. Gracie was anemic, very seriously so. Her hematocrit was down to 14.6, when a normal reading is 24-45. Her gums were pale. No wonder she was so weak. Gracie’s ALT, which measures her liver function, was elevated. It was at about 146, about three times normal. I’d seen 400-600 levels in my cat, Bob so I knew she could hang on, but that it wasn’t great news.
Dr. Mary suggested that sometimes these things progress very quickly. She said if money wasn’t an object that getting a transfusion would help Gracie feel better but that it wouldn’t solve the problem that Gracie had something bad going on inside her. She gently told us that we should prepare ourselves and that she didn’t feel it was likely that Gracie would be with us much longer—maybe a few more days. My heart sank and my knees felt like they were about to give out. There was no hope left. Sam and I had already agreed we didn’t want Gracie’s last days to be filled with poking and prodding, with fear, with trips in the car, to what avail? It was important for us to give Gracie dignity and respect and indeed if it was her time we had to respect that, even if we had no chance to prepare ourselves for this to happen.
We decided to take her home and start her on Prednisolone. Steroids can help a cat feel better and increase appetite. It was something we could do to help her have a happier final day or two. I asked Sam to take Gracie into the waiting room so I could stay behind and pay the bill for the day, but my focus was to make “the appointment” every cat parent dreads. I made the appointment to have Gracie euthanized at home on Tuesday August 25th at 2 PM, which was the soonest Dr. Larry was available. I tried not to cry but all I could think about was how this was so unfair and that Gracie was such a good girl, so sweet…how could we go on without her in our life any longer? The tears came, quick and hot. I put my sunglasses on to hide my grief. Dr. Mary patted my hand and told me I could contact her after hours if I needed something. She was so kind and compassionate, but all I wanted to do was to go home, hide under my bedcovers and cry some more.
Part 3 next...where as my Mother used to say "things get dark before they go totally black." Yeah, she was great at cheering me up. :-(
In my last post I wrote about trusting your gut instincts. My 14-year old cat, Gracie hadn’t been quite right after having a dental cleaning. She was barely eating and becoming less and less active. I kept taking her to see my vets, telling them something was still wrong. We all tried to sort out what was going on, but as often happens with cats, they’re great at hiding health issues until they’re in such bad shape that their life is in jeopardy.
A little over two weeks ago, my vet, Dr. Larry, was very concerned about Gracie’s liver. He urged me to get an ultrasound done as soon as possible. It would give us a better idea of why Gracie’s liver looked strange on x-ray. The problem was that the vet who came to his office once a week and performed the ultrasound diagnostics was booked up for weeks.
Gracie's x-rays. Another good reason to do a baseline x-ray of your cat during a routine exam when they're seniors. (top) You can see how the center of Gracie's abdomen, where her liver is located, looks cloudy. That's the fluid buildup in her abdomen and her liver is enlarged. (Bottom) organs look more defined.
I knew we could get the ultrasound done at one of many emergency veterinary hospitals in the area, but Dr. Larry said he really wanted me to take Gracie to the one he considers top notch and that meant a trip to Pieper Memorial, which is over an hour drive away. Though other hospitals were closer, Dr. Larry trusted Dr. Sean’s expertise and he knew I'd do whatever was asked to get to the bottom of Gracie’s issues.
The thought of the trip gave me painful flashbacks to the last time I went to Pieper. It was in 2012 and I had Fred with me; a 10-month old kitten who had lost use of his back legs. Dr. Sean was to look for signs of FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis) because that was our fear. I remember pacing anxiously outside the hospital in their garden. It was early April and still cold, but I couldn’t stay inside and sit quietly waiting for the results. I prayed and prayed that Dr. Sean would tell me Fred was going to be okay. Ironically, he did tell me there were no signs of FIP, but sadly Fred did have it and died a few weeks later. I didn’t want to have the same experience now—a clean ultrasound and heartbreak later. I angrily wondered why even bother doing an ultrasound if the results are so questionable, but it was safer than doing exploratory surgery by far.
Sam had been working around-the-clock on a very challenging project and was exhausted. I was emotionally wiped out from worrying about Gracie and didn’t sleep the night before the test. I was going to take Gracie by myself so Sam could stay home and tend to the cats, but Sam somehow dragged himself out of bed, after very little sleep, and we both took Gracie to Pieper. I was so grateful he made the effort because frankly I didn’t want to be alone. I needed him to be with us.
It was a sunny morning and the commuters were out in full force. I sat with the cat carrier on my lap with the top unzipped so I could pet Gracie. She was not happy to be back in the car yet again, but she was comforted by my gentle caress. I felt sick to my stomach with worry, but we had to know what was going on and if there was a chance we could do something about it.
We didn’t have to wait long before a cheerful vet tech took Gracie from us. I stopped her before she could turn away and asked if didn’t Dr. Sean want to talk to us first and she said no, that he had all her notes. I found that odd and wondered if they didn’t value my observations. I’m not a vet so what do I know. Maybe it’s not necessary. All he’s doing is looking into her abdomen. Whatever I say won’t change what he finds.
I sat against the side of an austere hallway lined with chairs with Sam by my side. Sam was drinking coffee, trying to wake up and I was trying to be calm while my heart was pounding in my chest. I saw a lot of dogs with their parents. I tried to distract myself by people-watching. Did they match their pets? Not really. Did one of them have a really big behind when the rest of her body was tiny? Yes. Did I wonder if the golden retriever with the white mask of fur on his face was going to be around much longer. Yes.
A few minutes later, the tech arrived and said the Dr. Sean was ready to talk to us. My stomach did a flip-flop as I stood. I reached out to Sam for support as we entered a nearby exam room.
Dr. Sean entered and took a seat. I could read by his body language that the news was not good. He proceeded to tell us that Gracie’s liver was full of cysts and she had fluid in her abdomen. It was likely it was cancer, but to make certain it wasn’t just cysts, he wanted to insert a needle into one of the cysts to take a biopsy (called cytology). I asked about the costs and it wasn’t going to break the bank so I agreed. I asked if we could hope for it to be cysts and he said yes, but that it was unlikely. Of course he’d seen things like this before so I had to accept the fact that maybe this was the end of the road for our cat.
We thanked Dr. Sean and left him to do the test. I felt like my heart was going to explode. I wanted to run away. How the HELL did I miss my cat having CANCER? How is this happening? Just the day before all I thought I needed to do was fine tune Gracie’s medications so that we could get her eating better and now I’m thinking my cat is possibly terminally ill.
I needed to go outside. I didn’t want people to see me react to the news. I raced out the door back to the garden. I paced. I cried. I prayed for a glimmer of hope. Sam tried to comfort me but I couldn’t stand still. I wanted Gracie to be okay. I wasn’t ready for this to happen. My mind was swirling with dark visions of what the future held-if there was to be any future-for my girl.
It didn’t take long for the test to be done. One of the techs came outside to find us to tell us we could check out and take Gracie home. It being a Thursday meant that the results would probably not be ready until Monday. MONDAY?! I wondered if Gracie would be alive by Monday—and sadly I wasn’t wrong to worry about that.
I’d set Gracie up inside a big dog crate with a cat bed and heated pad. She’d spent the last week on the bed, but now she wanted to lay on the cooler flat oriental rug near the crate. I imagined that her belly must have hurt based on how awkwardly she would lay down. I grabbed some soft blankets and made some bumpers for her to rest her head on and one where she could prop herself up. She’d sit up, stretching her abdomen, no doubt to give her enlarged liver and fluid build-up more space inside her. I wanted to keep her as comfortable as possible. I also had to figure out a way to get her to eat.
So began an all-too-familiar odyssey—trying to find the Holy Grail of cat nutrition to keep Gracie alive, at least for a few more days.
Part 2, to Hell and Back, next...and don't think you already know what's going to happen, because no one saw this coming.
I just re-read the posts from last year. I’m glad I sat on it for so long because the lesson I’ve learned has ripened while Blitzen has become sick again, seemingly out of the blue.
Firstly, I’m working this year. I’m very grateful that my graphic design business is staying busy and I’ve got a small handful of clients and some very interesting work ranging from designing bobblehead carton graphics to re-designing a web site for a New York State agency.
I’ve had to cut back on blogging, as you know, but the good news is I'm starting to plan a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds so Covered in Cat Hair will be published as a series of rescue stories. Our first will focus on Freya! I also have plans for taking Kitten Associates to the “next level” so our rescues won’t be forgotten and we’ll continue to do what we do going forward in bigger and better ways.
Regarding Blitzen, further observation made me realize he does NOT have Feline Hyperesthesia. He never had enough signs to make me get him to the Vet. Last year I wrote about his thick, soft coat. Guess what? That was the culprit. Blitzen gets micro mats in his coat because it’s so very thick. They run along his back. If they get big enough he gets irritated. His back will ripple. He will sit up, alerted to the strange feeling, then run off and groom himself.
Once we started combing out his fur every few days, his symptoms stopped.
The more troubling problem has returned and with that, too, I’ve begun to see it in a different light. Blitzen’s had a relapse of the horrible ulcers and rash on his head and mouth. I assumed he could not have this happen again since we already dealt with tucking away all the loose pull cords from the window blinds. Less than two weeks ago, Blitzen was getting a checkup and he looked good, aside from a tiny pinprick-sized bloody spot on his head. Dr. Mary said he really needed a dental cleaning so I told her I’d make sure that happens soon. We did some blood work on him and it looked great.
What I didn’t realize is that the tiny wound was not from playing with Freya, it was the beginning of a serious allergic reaction forming on his face, in front of his ears. One day I looked over at him and saw a circular, scabby wound. It was about the size of a pencil eraser, maybe ¼” in diameter. I more carefully examined his head and realized the fur was gone and the skin was quite pink-a sign of an allergic reaction.
I couldn’t get my mind around what was going on. I treated the wound, but it got a bit worse. Blitzen’s lower lip became swollen and I made an appointment with the Vet right away. I couldn’t sort out what he was getting into to cause this to happen so I made sure he only got his homemade raw food, nothing commercially prepared.
Yesterday we were due to go to the Vet, but I started to think about what they would do. They would give him steroids, which is a big no-no in my book or antibiotics, again another no-no when he wasn’t getting an infection. Honestly, what would they do other than those things or maybe add Benadryl, which didn’t seem to help the last time. I cancelled the appointment deciding to give it a few days.
Today I had a breakthrough, totally by accident. Our dopey cat DOOD was once again bothering our senior girl, Petunia. I got up to intervene when I saw Blitzen. He was jumping down from a table with a long gluey strand of saliva, cascading out of his mouth. I thought he was choking and called Sam to assist me with him.
He was all right. I syringed a small amount of water into Blitzen’s mouth to rinse out the over-production of spit. Sam and I returned to the scene of the grime and Sam called out that Blitzen must have been chewing on “the string.”
“What string?”
“The pull cord from the blind over here in the corner.”
We’d missed it. There was another pull cord that was very tough to get to, but somehow Blitzen had been chewing on it. It was brown-stained and wet. We stopped what we were doing and did another patrol around the house, tying up every low pull cord so this could NEVER happen again.
But there’s something important I’ve learned to ask myself when my cats get sick: “What is the underlying problem here? What is driving Blitzen to chew these cords?”
The answer was very simple. Blitzen needs his teeth cleaned. I already knew his gums were irritated and he has a funky tooth. I thought about what I’d do if I were Blitzen and sure as heck I’d find a way to soothe my gums and those thick pull cords would do the trick. Last year when I brought Blitzen to the Vet I’m pretty sure his gums were irritated but we felt it was due to the allergic reaction, not the other way around.
I called our Vet and moved his appointment up to Tuesday. I also told them that Dr. Mary should call me first. I knew if she saw him she’d possibly not want to do the sedation, but I feel very certain once we get his teeth taken care of everything else will fall into place. I bet this has been going on for over a year. Do I feel like a jerk, a bad cat-mama? YES!
As always, I hope that what I’ve learned/screwed up will help you avoid doing to your cat. Be a careful observer. If you don’t blog about your cats, then get a notepad and make some notes if it’s not an emergency situation. As Pam Johnson-Bennet taught me, “THINK LIKE A CAT.” It will make an enormous difference in your cat’s life.
DISCLAIMER: I would never assume I know more than my Vet so in the end I will respect Dr. Mary’s decision on wether or not she can go ahead with Blitzen’s dental even with sores on his lip and head. I would also remind all of you, which I’ve illustrated here, even with careful observation, you may be wrong and what you think is ailing your cat has yet to be known, diagnosed or understood. Try to stay open-minded and also, as great as the internet is, it’s not the be-all and end all for diagnosing your cat’s ailments.
UPDATE: Since I finished writing this post Blitzen has made the trip to see Dr. Mary. She just called me. It was horrible news.
Blitzen had to have 4 teeth removed. He was also MISSING three teeth. They already had been reabsorbed into his gums. No wonder he was so focused on chewing the cords. Rubbing and gnawing them probably gave him the only relief for his VERY painful mouth.
I'm going to add raw meaty bones to his diet once his mouth heals as coincidently, just today I learned how important they are to give your cat's teeth a cleaning. Currently, we only feed ground raw meat, bones and organs with some supplements. Our cats NEED to GNAW to strengthen their jaw muscles and keep those teeth strong. With Blitzen only being five years old, this is a terrible shock to me, leaving me feeling deeply ashamed he suffered for the past year and a half. If I don't right this ship he will have no teeth and that can't happen.
Fifteen months ago I wrote a piece that I never posted. I felt too much shame to dare allow anyone to read it. I’m going to share it with you now because I want to illustrate a few important points that I hope will help you if you're facing something similar in your life.
1. Things change. It’s the ONLY thing you can count on happening-ever. So. If you’re feeling bad, depressed, upset, this is not how you will feel forever. Why is this important to state? Because when you feel down, you never feel like you will ever be “up” again. Trust in this simple fact: that your feelings WILL change given some time. Perhaps you can get through dark days, as I struggle to work though this myself. (I do not mean to be glib or make light of the fact that there are people who have serious mental illness and need counseling and medical assistance to get through each day beyond simply trusting that their feelings will wax and wane over time).
2. The other point is regarding the next health crisis you have with your cat. I’ve recently experienced a very challenging health issue with my cat Blitzen, that was not possible to diagnose completely, which left me scratching my head, even today as I write this. The goal of this point is that there are times when giving it time is the best thing to do. Taking a step back is sometimes a good option (of course as long as it’s not a life threatening emergency).
From the dark corners of my heart, here is a portion of that post I didn’t want to share:
March 5, 2014
For the past 4 years I’ve worked very hard to get Kitten Associates off the ground. The first year I paid for many of the expenses out of my own pocket. I gave up opportunities to work a 9-5 job or to take on taxing freelance graphic design gigs at home because of the amount of time it takes to care for our rescue kittens 24/7/365.
I do not regret my choice, but over the past year I’ve only made $850.00 and I’ve lived off whatever money I had put aside for a rainy day. I don’t go anywhere on vacation. I can’t remember the last one I had. I think it was a few days in Maine in 2006. I don’t drink or smoke. I stay home. I care for the cats. I write stories that I hope entertain and educate all of you. I work on ways to keep Kitten Associates afloat (and that has gone well so far). My day ends around 12:30AM or later when I finish spending time with and feeding the kittens for the last time of the day.
I help many people find rescues or homes for their cats that I don’t even post about or help them find a way to live better with their cats when there’s a behavior issue.
I don’t get paid a dime for anything I do.
There are people who would say I’m a moron for the financial corner I’ve gotten myself into. There are those who would say I’m irresponsible for having any of my own cats because as of this moment, for the first time in years, I have a cat who needs medical attention and I have no way to provide it for him.
I am beyond mortified. I am heartbroken, angry, frustrated and I feel hopeless. I don’t understand why someone who works as hard as I do has nothing to show for it financially.
I’ve made some changes and am working on ways to get my income stream back. I’m pitching clients for work and I’ve cut back my hours with Kitten Associates (well, I try to cut it to only 5 days a week instead of 7 but I can NEVER cut back on cat/kitten care), but finding paying work won’t happen overnight.
A few months ago, my 3 year old cat, Blitzen started doing this funny thing with his paws. He’d lift the right, then the left. Something was bothering him so I took him to the Vet. She found he had a rodent ulcer on the side of his mouth and that his middle toes on his front paws were very slightly swollen. It appeared to be due to an allergic reaction to something—what that something was, would require a lot more testing.
We decided to go easy and try something simple-just some Benadryl. It seemed to help and he was doing all right. We gave him antibiotics for his mouth. I thought he was fine, but it came back. This time we opted for a very low dose of steroids, but within a few days Blitzen contracted a very nasty URI since his immune system was compromised and he began urinating all over the house and was aggressive to some of the cats. It was a side effect of the steroids.
I took him off the drugs and went back to square one. More Benadryl…for 3 weeks, then 2 weeks of clavamox (an antibiotic) and boy was he tough to pill. It didn’t cure the problem. In the meantime I tried to figure out if we were feeding him something or if he was getting into something that would cause this, but why ONLY Blitzen and not our other cats?
There was enough reduction in his paw pain and mouth for me to try some fish oil because our vet thought it might help. It didn’t. Now both sides of his mouth are swollen and tender. He’s depressed. Tonight he was seriously limping on his left paw. It broke my heart to see it. I had a very small amount of buprenex on hand so he’s resting now, but he needs to get to the vet ASAP. I can’t let my cat be in pain like this.
June 16, 2014
The next part of my post is a fundraiser, begging for help so I can raise the funds to get Blitzen vetted. I estimated it would cost about $1100.00.
After careful consideration I decided to scrap the idea. Instead I became determined to find the cause for Blitzen’s problems on my own. It had been going on for over 6 MONTHS. The paw-raising, the rodent ulcers, waxed and waned. I’d think he was okay then he’d get worse. I decided that his mid-day snack of grain-free canned food would stop. He’d only be on raw food. I knew that it was possible he was having a reaction to his food so now his snack would be raw, too.
The other thing Dr. Mary said was that it could be a seasonal allergy-which shocked me since he’d never had this problem before and six months had passed. She said we could do allergy testing, but something was nagging at me that this wasn’t the problem.
Since antibiotics and steroids hadn’t worked I wanted to give Blitzen time for his body to recover from the medications he’d been on. I did not want to continue doing any tests, like skin scrapings or biopsies until I gave his body a chance to heal on its own.
And then came the day I saw something I’d seen, but not “seen.” Every morning Blitzen would go over to the blinds that hang over the kitchen window and chew on the cord that opened and closed the blinds. He’d gnaw on it. I wouldn’t encourage him to do it but it never clicked with me that it was anything other than benign behavior.
That’s when I did a high-speed flashback over the past few months. Blitzen often chewed on the cords of the other blinds as well. The cord would rub on the corners of his mouth, right where the rodent ulcers appeared. Some of the other cats may have been chewing on the cords, too so swapping all that bacteria around made me wonder if between the irritation and the bacteria if THAT was the culprit.
I went on a mission to tie up and move ALL the cords on all the blinds all over the house. The following day I watched Blitzen as he struggled to get to the cords. Over a few days he stopped trying to get at them and some time after that I noticed that he stopped limping and his mouth sores began to go away.
The thing that also seemed to happen was that concurrent with his sores and limping I saw behavior that was indicative of Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome, the same disorder that Lux the Cat on My Cat From Hell was diagnosed with having.
In Blitzen’s case, IF he has it, it is VERY MILD. But during the worst of the limping and the sores, he’d also have these odd “fits” where seemingly out of the blue the fur over his back would ripple. Blitzen would jump up and race across the room in a frenzy. He’d stop for a moment and lick at himself quite furiously as if an imaginary creature was making his skin crawl.
Careful observation, even note taking is important when you’re trying to understand what’s going on with your cat. In Blitzen’s case, stopping his OCD chewing behavior MAY have helped lessen his other symptoms. I also made an effort to spend more time doing soothing behaviors, like gently brushing him, but not for so long that he became over-stimulated. He visits me while I’m writing and reaches up to be held. I will stop what I’m doing, pick him up and give him 5 or 10 minutes of cuddling and focused attention. It helps him relax.
Blitzen lives with 9 other cats. It’s important, especially for him that he doesn’t feel left out. I can SEE it on his face when we’re having playtime and he feels overshadowed by the DOOD or Mabel. He sits back and doesn’t take part but now that I’ve been helping him feel more important he started playing for the first time in a very long time.
We recently weighed Blitzen and the other cats so we can track if any of them need more or less to eat. He’d gained a bit of weight but was still within normal limits. The thing that was more astounding to me was his coat. It was thicker, maybe even a bit longer. Instead of being hunched over he slept stretched out with his belly up in the air. He simply looks amazing.
I’m still watching Blitzen for signs of any of these issues returning. He’s had grain-free canned food and hasn’t had a reoccurrence of the rodent ulcers (so far knock wood). The other night I saw his back fur ripple and he looked like he was going to have another mysterious attack, so I distracted him quickly, then sat with him and gently petted him, soothing his anxiety. The attack stopped and he recovered very fast. Other than that his other changes have been just shy of amazing.
Now I wouldn’t suggest ignoring your Vet, but there may be situations where taking a step back and doing detective work pays off, as it did with Blitzen. He was never in danger of dying from anything we tried or didn’t try. I felt like I could give myself time to simply observe Blitzen because he’d recovered enough where he was not in pain and not limping.
What I DID avoid doing was going down a financial rabbit hole running test after test for something that most likely was a psychological problem that blossomed into a physical problem. By making changes in his environment and care he responded positively. He’s a much more stable cat now and clearly seems to be much happier.
As for the depression and anxiety I wrote about earlier in this post, I too am feeling much better these days. I AM getting some paying work and I’ve made some changes in my eating habits that I believe are helping me feel more cheerful and be able to take things in stride.
While I didn’t solve world peace, I found peace in my heart. I hope this helps you find your way there, too.
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A year later…just about June 2015 Blitzen gets sick again, but what is causing his symptoms to return?
You won't believe what happened next. Find out in our conclusion coming up next!
I didn’t want to take Freya to the Vet. I was sick with worry about it. If Freya was a “normal” cat I wouldn’t be so concerned, but we already know that Freya has lots of deformities so it wouldn’t be surprising that her ovaries or uterus had some issues. I knew she’d be in very good hands because Dr. Chris, our Board Certified surgeon, was going to do the procedure. He’d also be the final word on whether or not Freya still needed to have her right inner ear CT scanned and if she'd also needed surgery on her ear canal to drain any remaining infection.
I love Dr. Chris, not like I want to run away and bear his children love, but I really cherish working with him. He’s always smiling even though the poor guy has often had to soothe my fears about Freya. He’s extremely smart and talented and I trust his opinion (okay and he’s really cute, too, but that has nothing to do with it. I’m just dutifully relating information as any good writer would).
So this morning I sat in the now so very familiar waiting room at NVS with Freya at my side, who was snuggled inside her Robin’s egg blue cat carrier. Dr. Chris came out from the back of the building to escort us into an exam room. Just seeing his radiant smile made me feel more relaxed. I hadn’t seen him for a few months and it was good to see him again. After we said a quick hello, I found myself focusing on the mental laundry list of things he needed to know about Freya. As I spoke I noticed he was looking at Freya as she ran around the room. He was smiling, then remarked how great she looked. After all she’d been through I didn’t see her transformation as clearly as Dr. Chris did.
Dr. Chris examined Freya as we spoke about what should be done today. We went over the costs which would range from $1800.00 to $5100.00, the low price being only the spay. Of course many of you who do rescue know we can get spays done for under $100 at a clinic, but Freya couldn’t go to a clinic since we didn’t know what was yet to be discovered inside her.
It was a tough nut to swallow, but I knew we had to do what was right for our kitten. Dr. Chris said that he didn’t feel Freya should have the CT scan yet. Clinically she was doing very well. She was playing, eating, passing stool. She no longer had a head-tilt, though she does have some deafness, which could be something she’s had since birth. Instead of spending that money on the CT now, he thought it was wise to wait and give her more time. If she relapses then we’d have to do the scan, but for now the less we do to her, the better.
All that was left to decide was when to do her spay surgery. Again, I was surprised by the answer. Dr. Chris felt that Dr. Mary or Dr. Larry could do the spay and that as a rescue it would be better for us to bank the savings so we could rescue more cats than spend it on having him do the procedure. I asked if he felt it was safe to have our G.P. Vet do the surgery and he thought they could easily handle it. He also said I could bring her back and he would still perform the procedure if our other vets didn’t feel comfortable taking her on.
He added that it was very unlikely Freya would ever need the “twist” surgery that Dr. Pavletic pioneered to aid her rectum function. The plan was for it to be her final surgery when she reached her first birthday. Since she never ended up developing megacolon, which would have been corrected during her spay, there’s no need to do that either. So instead of needing three surgeries for her colon/rectum, she was done after just the one we did last year. Wow!
I agreed to call Dr. Larry and to determine whether or not we could have Freya’s spay performed today since she was already fasted and ready to go. Then, what I never expected happened. In my writer’s mind I'd describe a romantic scene about being alone in the exam room with Dr. Chris; about how our eyes locked in an intense gaze across the room, the passion building between us, undeniable, magnetically drawing us ever closer, but also knowing his peers and my friends might read this; I’ll have to keep a more detailed fantasy to myself. In truth, what really happened was very straightforward, COMPLETELY professional and G-rated.
Dr. Chris is leaving NVS. I will never see his smiling face again.
It was a bitter pill to swallow after such a long journey. After discussing the results of a million x-rays of Freya’s colon, after a hundred tears worrying about my kitten, after all this; it was over. Dr. Chris said his residency is wrapping up in Newtown and he’s accepted a position in Miami and will be leaving in July (in that heat?!).
Resigned to this disappointing news, I gave Dr. Chris a hug goodbye and told him I was sorry to see him go(along with my silly schoolgirl crush). He walked us over to the reception desk, smiling politely as he said goodbye, then turned, greeting the next couple waiting to meet with him.
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Two hours later.
Freya and I were in the exam room at Dr. Larry’s office. As he entered the room I could feel the energy shift. I knew that Dr. Larry’s in-law had passed away a few days ago and that he was truly hurting. He looked visibly thinner and tired. Before we could talk about Freya I reached out and gave him a big hug and told him how sorry I was for his loss. Dr. Larry’s my brother from another mother and I hate to see him suffering. I felt badly for even asking him to spay Freya. He should be home with his family.
I gave Dr. Larry the rundown and explained to him why I felt it was okay to at least try to spay Freya. We had a few rounds of blood work done in the past that were very clean. She’d had a 2-hour long surgery and did well. She was eating and playing normally. She went into “heat” so that meant something was working inside her. We just didn’t know how well it worked or if there were other surprises.
Dr. Larry listed his concerns, which all made sense. He told me she could have part of her reproductive organs fused to other organs or her digestive tract or a whole host of other issues that could kill her.
In the end I agreed that he should consider this an exploratory surgery and if she was well enough to be spayed, to do so and if not I’d take her to Dr. Chris for a surgery at a later date.
He told me that he’d call me right away if there was a problem and that if she did all right he’d wait until he was done to let me know how things went. Basically if there was no news any time soon, that was good.
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Three hours later.
Dr. Mary, Dr. Larry’s partner, called me. She sounded as cheerful and bubbly as ever. She said; “Well, Miss Freya is all set. We did the spay and she’s recovering now.”
“Yes, she did fine. Everything was normal. She may act a bit odd for a few days since she her hormones were still elevated, but other than that she’s doing well. You can pick her up later this afternoon.”
After I hung up the phone it hit me. It’s OVER. Freya doesn’t need any more surgeries and hopefully will never need a CT scan. She’s spayed. She’s had her shots. She’s been de-wormed. She’s passed all the milestones our other foster cats have passed. It just took a lot longer and we never were sure we'd make it this far.
No more worrying about if she’s going to survive her surgeries. She did. No more worrying about her being able to pass stool. She does.
No more wondering if she’ll ever hold her head straight or have both eyes open. It’s all good.
“In my mind’s eye I can see Freya, sleeping on a soft bed that is bathed in sunlight. She’s comfortable and plump. She looks like she’s smiling as she sleeps away the afternoon. She is healthy and well and these dark days are over for her. She didn’t have to die, she got to live. That is my dream for Freya...”
And for once, my dream came true due in part to so MANY generous donors who offered not only financial support but sent cards and gifts to Freya, who put tires on my old car, who sent us emails and called and told us they cared so very much about our little foster kitten. To our amazing Vets: Dr. Chris, Dr. Larry, Dr. Mary, Dr. Pav, Dr. Deb and Dr. Cory--yes, it took all your expertise to bring us to this fine day and I appreciate it so much. To Chelsea and Randy, who gave up their kitten because it was the right thing to do for her, even though it meant giving her up (and it was Chelsea's birthday that day, too), thank you for your bravery and trust in letting a rescue take over when you weren't able to.
I guess there's only one thing left to do. It’s time to put Freya up for adoption.
How did five months come and go so quickly? To say it’s been a blur is an understatement. In our last chapter about Freya, it was December 2014 and she’d just had successful surgery to create a rectum so she could finally pass stool. She was barely four months old and was at very high risk of dying if the surgery didn’t work or from complications after the procedure.
Freya beat the odds. The first day I met her last September she weighed a pound and was far too tiny to operate on. They gave her a 10% chance to survive unless I could keep her going until she was bigger. I struggled with her-getting her nutrition, but without bulking her up more with stool. By mid-December, she was near to bursting so I had to rush her to Boston, to MSPCA-Angell Memorial, for the very delicate and rare procedure. (For more on Freya’s backstory, see the end of this post for a list of links).
By the New Year it seemed as though everything was going in Freya’s favor, finally. She began passing stool, sadly WHERE she passed it was another hurdle. I celebrated the fact that she was no longer constipated by creating the “The Poop Fairy;” a cheerful elf with a magic wand helping stool to pass (covered in fairy dust, of course) out of kitties who had elimination problems.
Freya's incontinence meant keeping her on a raw diet or very high protein cooked diet because I don’t want to add bulk to her output by giving her carbohydrate laden foods. At least when her stool comes out it’s not (too) smelly and it’s fairly dry. I call my daily routine with her: “Going on a brown Easter egg hunt.” It’s almost amusing where I find her little “eggs,” though on a “bad” day I have woken up to finding smears of stool all over the protective cover on the bed.
But my joy was short-lived. In mid-January Freya was due for her second distemper combination vaccination (FVRCP) booster. I honestly hate giving this vaccination since I’ve had quite a few kittens have a VERY bad reaction resulting in soaring high fevers, lethargy and inappetence. Freya’s first vaccination made her sick, so there was every reason to think the second would effect her badly as well. The problem was, I had no idea just how bad it was about to become.
Disclaimer: this is MY experience with what happened to Freya, but it should in no way prevent you from vaccinating your cat. The FVRCP vaccination prevents Feline Panleukopenia (which can be FATAL), Calicivirus and Feline Rhinotracheitis virus. These are things you NEVER want you cat to have. Always speak with your vet about any concerns you have regarding vaccinations, but…
…barely four days after Freya’s vaccination I came home from a rare trip to the movies with Sam. I looked at Freya and freaked out. The third eyelid on her right eye was covering half of her eye. I had no idea what to think other than it was an injury so I took her over to our 24hr Emergency Vet (NVS) since it was a Sunday (of course) and our regular vet was closed.
We were very lucky that their ophthalmologist was available. She was able to tell us that Freya's eye was fine, but she had Horner’s Syndrome, which is a neurological disorder whose root cause could be one of many different origins. There was inflammation of the optic nerve that forced her third eyelid to rise from its otherwise normal position. There was no cure other than to wait and hope that it would resolve on its own. For now Freya was basically blind in one eye. Add that to her ever-growing list of deformities and this cat had one heck of a tough burden to bear.
Though it’s a bit of a misty memory now, we’d followed up by doing some blood tests on Freya. It showed she was positive for Bartonella, the bane of my existence. She probably got it from being born outdoors and being exposed to fleas. We began treating her for that when I started to notice she seemed to be holding her head at a weird angle.
Freya’s head was tilted over on the same side as her wonky eye. Back to the Vet again and that resulted in finding out she had a very serious ear infection (from what??!!). Did that cause the eye problem/nerve inflammation? Did she have a physical deformity with her inner ear that caused her to retain fluid, which then got infected, causing the head tilt? Had the ear infection begun first, causing the Horner's syndrome, but we only discovered the ear infection when it was serious enough to cause the head-tilt?
Was it from the vaccination? The Bartonella? A physical deformity?
All I knew was that after being on antibiotics for 3 weeks for bartonella, we had to put Freya on another, stronger antibiotic to treat the ear infection. This one could BLIND her in a higher dose and I was scared shitless about putting her on it for six WEEKS. I kept pushing back about how long she had to be on the medications. I wondered what this stuff would do to her digestion since antibiotics are notorious for causing diarrhea. We had to put her on Baytril because it can penetrate bone and that’s likely where the infection was; inside the tiny bones of her inner ear.
I have no idea how many vet visits we did because now I had waxing and waning numbers of ALL our foster and “owned” cats getting sick, too. (see THIS post for that story).
So I focused on giving Freya Baytril, hoping to see her lovely blue eye again, hoping she could run without her head hanging to the side. It’s ironic that I was okay with her being incontinent, but thinking I’d never see her sparkling blue, silly crossed-eyes again broke my heart.
It took the full six weeks before Freya began to act more like herself. One day I realized I could see her eye again and the next her head seemed straighter. Dr. Mary continued to check her ear and report she was seeing less and less debris and infection. We discussed doing a CT scan and possible surgery on Freya to drain the area so we did a fundraiser to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Between the Horner’s syndrome, head-tilt, Bartonella, then being hit by at least two URIs and a stomach virus it was only as recently as FRIDAY of last week when Dr. Mary felt like Freya was almost out of the woods. That was four MONTHS after something set off a firestorm of health woes.
Freya sneezes and coughs once in awhile so she could still have a polyp in her right ear (based on the sneezing that doesn't seem to be a URI), but her inner ear looks normal now. The coughing could be a heart defect or parasites that I didn’t de-worm her for yet (she’s been de-wormed many times but needs a different de-wormer for the next round). Freya’s still tiny, weighing in at just over 5.5 lbs at almost nine months of age. In comparison, her brother, Pascal is almost 9 lbs. She’s still not 100%, but getting there.
Then when it seemed Freya couldn’t get anything else, she went into “heat.”Yes, Freya was “lookin’ for luv” and it was clear, due to all the yeowling, screaming, rubbing on every one and every thing she could get near that our little girl was becoming an adult. I haven’t been around an intact kitten…ever. I’d had to repeatedly put off Freya’s spay due to her chronic illnesses and I felt terrible she was suffering yet again. Clearly time was up. It HAD to be done.
Today was the day.
Part 17 airs next where we find discover that things are about to change whether we're ready for them to or not.
Here's a lineup of all our stories about Freya in chronological order from the beginning:
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