Gone.
We had to say goodbye to Jazzy today.
We knew it would happen sooner rather than later, but we didn’t think it would be this soon.
She threw up some blood this morning, which gave further evidence to our theory that she had some sort of lump or tumor somewhere in her upper digestive tract that has made it painful/impossible for her to eat. She then went and hid in the TV stand, which was another big indication that she knew it was almost her time to go.
The biggest indicator, though, was that she stopped purring.
We knew she was suffering. We didn’t want her to suffer anymore. We called the vet and they said they couldn’t get her in to get her put down for another few days, but they gave us the numbers of a few vets that would do in-home euthanasia. We were able to get an appointment in the late morning. Again, we didn’t want her to suffer anymore.
We spent a few hours just sitting with her in the living room before the vet came.
He was an excellent vet. He was very compassionate and understanding and careful. He explained what he was going to do and let me hold her as he administered the shots. She died peacefully in my lap with Nate next to us.
It was so hard to let her go. The vet put her little body in a cushioned box and carried her out after giving us time to just be with her.
Nate and I just sat on the bed crying after she was gone.
The house feels so empty. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we’ll never see her weaving down the hallway again or doing her little wiggly tail dance in the kitchen or hear her beautiful purrs. I know she’ll be here in spirit, but it won’t be the same.
She was my child.
I will miss you, Jazzy. I will love you forever.
Jazz
Jazzy’s got some bumps on her.
There’s a small and somewhat soft one on her back near her spine and there’s another pointier one on the back of one of her legs.
This is obviously concerning because there’s like a 99% chance she has cancer, so who knows if these bumps are from cancer or from something else.
We’re hoping that they’re just a side effect from all the steroids she’s been having to take to try to suppress the cancer, but who knows.
I hate it all.
Bad Jazzy News
So this is going to be a short blog ‘cause we’re still trying to process the news, but the vet called earlier and said that it is very likely that the cancer has spread from Jazzy’s eye to other parts of her body. They couldn’t conclude for certain that this was the case (they said there are a few spots that look like cancer but could possibly maybe be something else), but they said it was the most likely scenario.
So now we have to figure out some sort of treatment plan for her. Do we do the aggressive treatment that involves shots, medicine, chemo, and frequent vet visits with a decently high chance of remission, or do we do a less aggressive treatment that just involves giving her steroids and hoping for the best?
We considered it and we very quickly decided on the less aggressive treatment. She’s been MISERABLE with all these vet visits recently and we decided that if she only has a short amount of time left, we didn’t want her to live it in constant misery and stress and fear that she’ll be picked up and taken to the vet at any time. We want her to be happy, even if it means she’s possibly going to live a shorter life.
Both Nate’s mom and my mom agreed that that was the more humane decision (they know how stressed she gets at the vet), so we feel a bit better about making it, but still.
Everything fucking sucks about this. She’s the best cat in the world and she does not deserve this.
We’re also not sure how long we’ve got left with her. But we’re going to give her some steroids to hopefully slow or stop the cancer growth, which will hopefully let her live happily and pain-free for as long as possible.
But yeah. It’s been a horrible day. Time to cry forever.
Biopsy
We finally got the results of Jazzy’s eye biopsy and they said that they found cancer in it.
So that’s great.
Now we have to take her in to get an ultrasound and some x-rays to see if there’s more cancer in her. They said there’s a chance the cancer might be isolated in her eye because apparently that’s something that happens sometimes, but we can’t know for sure unless they check the rest of her.
As if she needs more medical nonsense to go through.
2021 is already PISSING ME OFF.
A Blog for Jim LaFortune
Mr. LaFortune was my earth science teacher in 9th grade. That was around the time when I was really into cycling and he and I always used to discuss the best places to ride around Moscow after class was over. He was a super excellent teacher, let us play a Jeopardy like game to review for the tests, and made my last class of the day something to really look forward to.
Unfortunately, he died early this morning, succumbing to brain cancer after a long fight.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jimlafortune
The world will miss you, Mr. La.
Today’s song: Miracles by Norwegian Recycling
Eigenblogger 