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Friday, December 08, 2017
Rollercoaster Ride of Life - Bailey & more
Ok I am behind, so very behind. It's been a rollercoaster ride of life for the past few weeks it feels like and I am trying to catch up but just not quite getting there. Sorry if this post is going to jumbled and maybe not all that coherent. Well let's back up for a bit. The last post I made was just a day or two before we were leaving the Azores I believe. And that was the week of Thanksgiving, just a couple days after Thanksgiving, at the end of November.
The rest of our Azores trip went well. Managed to have fun even with my ankle issue. Was able to get to the airport, on the plane and home from Boston without too much of an issue. At home I had an ankle brace (I am sort of an expert on ankle injuries .. being clumsy and all) and I put that on. It still hurts but it is getting better. Injuries like that just take time. My foot and ankle is bruised all around so I imagine I potentially partially tore something somewhere. But things are healing up and feeling better. Just takes time to get back to completely normal, that's all.
So yeah, that was the ankle stuff. Kind of annoying but not the end of the world either. But soon after we got home Bailey started to get worse. It was a slow-ish decline at first but she started coughing again. We had gone to the vet about 2 weeks prior and they had given her some shots and those seemed to work as her cough went away. And she was acting fine otherwise. She was fine the whole time we were gone and even when we got back. But soon after her cough started up again. And then she started being picky with her eating and started to be a bit more lethargic than usual. I say it was a slow progress but really within a week things took quite the turn. So slow is actually probably not the correct word at all. It just all kind of snuck up on us. We had a follow up appointment scheduled for last Saturday so we took her to the vet and they gave her another steroid shot. When we had last taken her they weren't sure if the cough was maybe just caused by asthma or an infection or if her cancer was coming back and spreading. Well her symptoms unfortunately matched up with the cancer diagnosis but we thought we could buy ourselves some more time by giving her another steroid shot. We also got an appetite stimulant and some hemp oil (medical marijuana for cats) for her. We were hopeful that with all those things we could buy ourselves a bit more time. Made another follow-up appointment for 2 weeks time and were on our way.
Well when we got home from the vet Saturday she actually seemed a bit perked up. She ate two bowls of food, used her litter box and seemed a bit more cheerful. But then by Sunday she was back to being lethargic and not eating all that much. I stayed with her most of the weekend and worked from home on Monday as well. Monday she was still the same, mostly lethargic and not moving much. She didn't seem in pain and did respond whenever we would pet her so we thought well maybe she's dehydrated so I called the vet and they told me to come in first thing Tuesday morning to get her some fluids. So we did that and they pretty much told me that if she didn't respond to this we really shouldn't drag this out much past Thursday or Friday. Her breathing was also getting a bit more labored at that point so they told me to keep an eye on that.
Well that was Tuesday morning, by Tuesday afternoon her breathing was getting more wonky. She started wheezing for short periods at a time, then it would ebb out again and she would sleep for a bit and then start up again. So at that point we made the decision not to prolong this and I made an appointment to bring her back on Wednesday morning. Well by about 8.30pm Tuesday night her breathing was getting worse and worse and we were really worried that she would go into some sort of shock in the middle of the night so I called the emergency vet in one of the next towns over and we ended up bringing her there. Got there about 9pm. They were really nice and well end of the story is that they wrapped her in a towel, put her in my arms and that's where she died.
It was definitely one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Making that kind of decision. I was there with our cat Oliver when we had to put him to sleep but with him it truly had been a slow decline. He had kidney disease for years and was on meds and eventually developed arthritis and was getting skinnier and skinnier and having more and more problems. But he was old and when the time finally came, it wasn't easy at all but in some ways it was a relief as well. But with Bailey, I am just in such a shock. Two weeks ago all was pretty much fine and here I am, no more Bailey. We of course do have our other two cats, Mindy and Sadie, but Bailey wormed herself into our hearts for this past year, she just left a huge gaping hole.
We adopted her from a shelter a little over a year ago. She was around 5 yrs old and pretty much right after we got her we took her to our vet and they discovered a mammary tumor. They removed it along with bladder stones. She was on a special food diet after that and the prognosis was 6 months to 5 years for her cancer. The hope was that it wouldn't come back but they did tell us that it was a very aggressive cancer. But for a year she was pretty much fine. She was a sweet and happy and funny cat. So full of spirit and for such a small cat she had the personality of a cat five times her size. I will truly miss her for a long time.
Having said all that I am behind on all my Christmas stuff. Cards have slowly been written and some gifts bought but I don't have decorations or a tree up and I am really just not sure if I am feeling it this year. Ugh. Well that's all. Bye for now.
Letter/Mail Update: Received a letter/owe a reply to: Celia/MA and Nina/WA.
Posted by Hanna at 07:33 AM in Cats | Permalink