A Year Without Jazzy
It’s been a year since we lost our sweetest little Jazz.
It’s been very hard.
I still have a lot of trouble going into our bedroom just because I always expect her to be on the bed. She LOVED bed.
She was such a wonderful little girl. I suspect all the health problems she had, including the cancer that eventually killed her, were due at least in part to living in that hoarding house. It’s not fair that she had to live like that and that those conditions probably shortened her life, but at least we were able to give her several years of happiness.
We miss you, Jazzy!
HEYOOOOOOOO
I miss Jazzy.
Just thought everyone should know.
God I Miss Jazzy
That’s the blog.
More Sad, Sorry
I can’t sleep in our bed anymore. I miss Jazzy too much.
Bed was her favorite, favorite place. She loved to go to bed at night; she’d run in there after me and she had a hard time waiting until I got under the covers so that she could loaf on my chest and purr as loud as she could.
The whole house feels empty without her. I don’t even want to be at home.
Everything is so sad.
Jazzy’s Ashes
My mom and I went to pick up Jazzy’s ashes today. It was, of course, emotional, but not as bad as I was expecting. She’s back with us now, which is what matters.
Here is an imprint of her paw.
I miss her so, so, so much.
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.
Future
I have a bad feeling about Jazzy. I think she’s not going to be with us much longer and I am NOT okay with that.
An Eventful Day
So there was a lot of stuff going on today! Let’s run through it.
First, today was the first day where I felt like it was light enough to get up early (5:30-ish) and run in the morning rather than the afternoon. I’ll have to start doing this in earnest next week, since running before class will be a necessity as it gets warmer.
Second, COVID vaccination registration opened up for the 30+ crowd today at 8 AM, so while Nate and I were sitting in the car during Jazzy’s vet appointment (to check her eye pressure – it’s still in the normal range!) I decided to get in the queue to pick an appointment time. And the number of people waiting in line ahead of me?
But I actually had to wait less than the estimated time and got an appointment for May 20. WOO!
And finally: a new Coldplay song? LET’S GOOOOO!
GOD, his voice…
Better Jazzy News
So in contrast to the phenomenally awful Jazzy news we got yesterday, we actually had some good news about her eye today. Namely, it’s responding to the medicine and the eye pressure has decreased back into the “normal” range. It’s at the high end of normal, yes, but still normal. Nate and I were both worried that it wouldn’t be responding at all like her other eye and they’d have to remove that one as well.
And that’s the LAST thing she needs right now.
Anyway, sorry for the short blog. I’m still really upset about yesterday’s news.
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.
Cone-Free
So Jazzy is finally free of the dreaded cone. I’ve never seen her so grateful to be able to clean her paws or scratch her ears. We were worried that she would go straight for her wound, but she didn’t. She’s such a good sweet girl.
Edit: pic!
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.
Jazzy Update!
So it’s been a week since we took Jazzy in to get her eye removed and she’s recovering very well! The worst thing about the whole process for her has been the cone she has to wear, I think, but even that’s something she’s getting used to. Here’s a current picture of her. It’s blurry because she doesn’t like to sit still, haha.
She’s acting very normally given the circumstances, which makes me feel very optimistic about them being able to remove the cone at her check-up.
Now we just have to hope that the same thing doesn’t happen to her other eye. We’ve got medication for it now, though, so hopefully that will help prevent this from happening again.
Winter. Winter Never Changes.
Today we had to take Jazzy to the vet for her eye removal surgery. We had to be there around 8 AM.
And in true 2020 fashion, on the one day we had to leave the house, the weather did this:
That’s about nine (edit: 10.6) inches of snow in the non-drifts. But we had to get to the vet because the next open appointment for the surgery wasn’t until January 5th and her pain and light sensitivity have been getting worse by the day it seems.
So we braved the snow. Nate had to practically shovel us out of the parking lot and the roads were kind of iffy to get to the vet, but we made it. Then we got stuck in the vet parking lot. Then some guy helped push us free and we just parked on the street while I took Jazzy to the drop-off area. Then we had to make it back home. But rather than try to get back into our parking lot, Nate decided to park over at the hospital. This ended up being a good plan because he could get 24-hour parking for about $15, so we just left the car there, hiked back home (only about a half a mile, but through a lot of snow and wind), and waited for the vet to call to give us an update.
Jazzy’s surgery went very well. She did fine under the anesthesia and there were no complications. So around 4:00 PM we hiked back over to the hospital (after helping push a guy out of our parking lot, haha), drove back down to the vet, and picked up our girl.
She had a cone on to help prevent her from scratching at the stitches in her eye and she managed to get the cone off within three minutes of us leaving the vet (she wedged it on the circular indent in the top of the cat carrier and jerked her head forward to pop the clips open), so I had to watch her to make sure she didn’t start scratching on the way home.
We had to park back at the hospital because our lot wasn’t shoveled yet, so we had to carry her as gently as possible through the snow to get her home.
But once we got her home and out of the carrier, she immediately started purring and flopping…until we put the cone back on her. Then she was very disoriented and upset and started panicking every time she ran into something with the cone. Luckily they gave us some pain meds that are quite sedating, so we gave her one and she zonked out after a while. She actually seems okay about missing her eye, but she hates that cone. She’s got to wear it for two weeks, though, so that will be fun.
Edit: Nate trimmed the cone the next morning and it fits her much better. She can move around a lot more easily now and can get to her food and water. I don’t want to post a picture of her because the eye area still looks a little rough, but maybe once it starts healing I’ll give a visual update.
Poor girl.
2020 Absolutely Sucks
COVID? Yes, of course that’s the main reason.
But another reason came for us today after we took Jazzy to the vet/ophthalmologist for a follow-up on her previous appointment. Her right eye is responding to the meds we’re giving her and her inter-ocular pressure is back within the normal range in that eye. But her left eye has not responded; in fact, the pressure is higher.
So they recommended that the best option for Jazzy is to have her left eye surgically removed. The pressure will eventually cause her to go blind and will cause a good amount of pain in the meantime.
She will have the eye removed next Tuesday.
I guess we should be looking at the good in this in the sense that the bloodwork they did on her came back completely normal, so there’s no underlying condition like leukemia or diabetes causing the eye issues, but it still completely sucks. They think the cause of it might just be from a virus she had when she was younger (probably in the crappy living conditions she was in before we got her) that triggered some sort of auto-immune response where her immune system started treating that eye as a foreign body.
We’ll have to keep special watch on her right eye to make sure it doesn’t happen to that one as well, though there was no visible sign of issues in her left eye until we first saw that blurriness on the 27th (I checked other Jazzy pics I had on my phone; there was no blurriness prior to that day).
I feel really guilty about not taking her to the emergency vet that first night we noticed it now, but I’m not sure if that would have actually made any difference (except maybe getting her some painkillers and some treatment faster) given that her left eye isn’t responding to the meds at all.
2020 blows.
The Jazz
So our sweet kitty is having eye issues. Back on November 27 (a Friday), I was playing with her by throwing her toy mouse at her as she sat in my chair, and I noticed in the sunlight that her left eye was blurry and her pupil was fairly dilated. Pic:
This was the first time I noticed it, so I told Nate about it when he got home and we decided to call our vet. Jazzy was just getting over pink eye in her right eye, which we had been giving her an ointment for. We figured that maybe whatever was going on with her left eye was its manifestation of pink eye as well. The vet said we could either take her to an emergency vet that was open 24/7 or we could try giving her the pink eye ointment in the left eye for a few days and see if that helped clear things up.
Speaking from hindsight, we should have probably taken her to the emergency vet. However, she was not acting any different than normal (like, not at all different. Still purring, flopping, playing, zooming around the house, eating, drinking, etc.) and wasn’t acting like she was in pain. We also were hesitant to take her to the emergency vet because a) she stresses like crazy when we put her in her carrier; b) the vet she would see would not be her usual vet and thus might stress her out more; c) at this point it was like 7 PM on a Friday evening and the emergency vet would probably just end up keeping her overnight or maybe even over the weekend – which would stress her out even more. So we went with the ointment.
But by that Monday, there didn’t appear to be much of a change in her eye, so we took her to our regular vet once we were able to get an appointment. She didn’t have the equipment to do a thorough eye exam, but again recommended the emergency vet because they did have an ophthalmologist that could take a look at her. So we took her there today.
They measured the pressure in both of her eyes and found it was elevated in both of them but more so in the left one. The ophthalmologist thought this increased pressure might be due to some inflammation they found in her eyes, so they gave us a bunch of eye drop meds (which she hates, oh my god) and we’re going to give her those until next Thursday when we take her back for a follow-up.
If she responds to the meds it’s likely they’ll just have us give her those for a while until things clear up, but if not, they talked about the possibility of having to remove her left eye, as the increased pressure causes pain and, if caused by glaucoma, will eventually cause her to go blind anyway.
So hopefully she’ll respond to the meds. It’s basically all we can do at this point.
Poor sweet girl.
Slow Cats
Here is Jazzy murdering a toy mouse in slow motion. She loves when we throw them at her like that and she can pounce like a big wild cat.
Purring Makes Everything Better
I feel like absolute crap today, so here’s a video of Jazzy purring.
You’re welcome.
Look at this adorable girl
She loves to grind her teeth and chin on my toes. And purr incessantly while she does so.
That is all.
FLUFFERNUTTER
Dudes, look at the amount of fluff I just combed out of Jazzy.
That’s like a fourth of her size. We could make a mini-Jazzy out of it if we wanted.
Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for today! I was going to go running outside once I got home from teaching because it was so freaking nice and sunny and (relatively) warm, but about five minutes after I got home it REALLY started to get windy out there, so I guess it’s good I stayed home.
(Even though I always feel guilty when I don’t exercise, even when it’s my scheduled off-day.)
A Wild Calico Appears!
DUDES, this kitty looks a lot like Jazzy.
Doesn’t she? She’s even purring incessantly, which is one of Jazzy’s favorite things to do.
I love cats so freaking much, yo.
Pretty Girl
Here’s more Jazzy in the sun.
I’m not very fun or interesting, but at least my kitty is pretty.
Poor Jazzy
Jazzy had her dental surgery today. They took out her top two canines, cleaned the rest of her teeth, and cleaned out the ear that always gives her itchy trouble. She had the kitty derp face when we picked her up, but she’s recovering surprisingly quickly. She is purring and flopping and jumping on the furniture tonight, which is a good sign.
Poor girl. I was really worried that she’d think we were going to leave her there forever (especially given her background), but they said she was pretty chill throughout the whole process and looked like she was feeling better pretty quickly once she got home. Good girl!
LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUS KITTY IN THE SUN
That is all.
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