Stephen

We got the extremely unexpected delivery of a bouquet of flowers from our vet, in memory of Gracie. Five pink roses, and some greenery. It's such an out of the ordinary thing; I'm really touched and a bit speechless about it. I'm sure it's the rare client who gets that, so I feel honored, and proud of Gracie.

Really that's an emotion I've been coming to: we gave her a good life, she was a good girl and loved us very much, and I'm really proud that all these people knew her and cared about her too. We did right by her, and it's over now, but it feels like an accomplishment to be proud of, loving her like we did.

Dr. Anderson, our primary vet and owner of the practice, was on vacation when Gracie died. The bouquet is signed from the Jet City Family; the timing suggests that it was ordered once Dr. Anderson got back from her vacation.

It's such a special vet practice, and we got so lucky picking them after we moved here, just because they were the closest to our apartment. It'll be hard if we ever have to switch.

Reischa wants to eat the roses, naturally

Gracie's situation has continued to deteriorate. We've had a number of issues we've been keeping an eye on:

- possible respiratory infection, despite the antibiotics she's been on
- difficulty defecating; we started her on some laxatives to see if we could get it moving
- general quality of life
- is she in pain?
- is her level of paralysis increasing?

Any one of these issues could have been our stopping point, but in the end it's the paralysis. The signs have been there for most of the past week now that I think back, but last night was the first time she really showed unambiguous signs that she's starting to lose strength in her front legs. I've made an appointment for her at-home euthanasia tomorrow morning.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think the best time would have been a couple days ago. It's been so hard not to be hopeful for more time, for improvements. It's really felt like every day was different from the last for a while now; sometimes better, sometimes worse.

She's getting lots of treats, lots of meds to help her be comfortable, lots of love. It's a saving grace that as much as she's struggling right now, she's still very much excited for tasty food.

We're going to miss her so, so very much, but it's time to let her rest.


Post script:

After I finished writing this, I was crying pretty loudly, and Gracie lifted herself up a little, towards me, and meowed at me. It wasn't her normal "I need something" meow which is actually a lot quieter than this, and less targeted. This one was definitely directed at me; I think just in reaction to me being upset. She's just the very sweetest little thing.

Gracie's new MRI showed that her cancer isn't operable any longer, so surgery is aborted. She's coming home soon, and we'll just love her for however long she has left. The biggest concern right now is that the tumor could start affecting her front motor control, at which point we won't be able to maintain quality of life for her anymore and will need to let her go.

It's been about three months since her initial diagnosis, which by all accounts is pretty good for this kind of cancer. We may not have much longer to go.

I'm so broken up about it right now, but I'm glad we tried and now we know. I'm upset that she had to have another stressful trip to the hospital in order for us to find out that we couldn't attempt surgery anymore.

It'll be good to have her back home.

This whole process has been really hard on Reischa too. A lot of disrupted routines, and the shift in how much attention was being paid to each of them has her unsettled. She and Gracie are both pretty nonconfrontational, so they've gotten along well over the years, but they've never become friends and always been a little nervous around each other.

A lot of that has been because Gracie just... doesn't speak cat. We're pretty sure she was taken from her mother too young, and never learned social queues. Reischa makes friendly overtures when she's in a particularly good mood - at mealtimes, or when one of us comes home after being away for a while. Gracie's reactions to being e.g. groomed or rubbed on are generally confused, and generally tolerant to mildly defensive. Which of course makes Reischa feel nervous because her friendly gestures were met with hostility.

Anyway, one silver lining that we're hoping for coming out of all this is for Reischa to feel less nervous and more comfortable once she's a single cat. It's a pretty crappy silver lining, but we're pretty sure that she'll really like being the only cat. We'll take what silver linings we can get.

My cat, Gracie, is dying.

She has lymphoma in her spine, which was very likely caused by her FIV+ status. We found out about it back in October, when she started having trouble walking and then became paralyzed in her back legs. Quick diagnosis of a tumor pressing on her spinal column and treatment got her walking again, but it's a matter of time. Since then she's been getting steroids and every other week she spends a day at the hospital getting chemotherapy.

Our vets have been amazing through this whole process. I've heard a lot about people having trouble getting appointments, but we've been able to get her the care she needs when she needed it. Our regular vet saw her the same day we called, and they arranged an appointment with a specialist for us the very next day.

That's all been fairly expensive, of course, and we're incredibly lucky to be able to afford this kind of care for her. This isn't the first time we've spent a lot of money on her care - she received radiation therapy for her acromegaly a few years ago, which reduced her diabetes to nearly nothing. She's had... a lot of health issues in her life. My experiences with her have convinced me that universal, single-payer veterinary care for companion animals is as badly needed as universal, single-payer health care is needed for people. Most people can't afford this kind of veterinary care, and no one should have to euthanize their pet because they can't afford the medical bills.

Since diagnosis, Gracie did really well for about two months. She's been a little unsteady, but moving around, able to do what she wants to do. Starting this month, in January, she's been struggling more. Her chemotheraphy has always seemed to weaken her for a few days afterwards, which our vet says isn't normal, so I don't know what that's about. But anyway, she started getting pretty bad after chemo. After her most recent round three days ago, she lost the ability to walk again.

She's not paralyzed, thank goodness, but she doesn't have much function in her rear legs right now. She can get around a little, and a couple times a day I bring her over to the litter box. When she was paralyzed she couldn't urinate voluntarily and the vet had to teach me how to express her bladder, so that she can pee on her own after being brought to the litter box is huge, actually.

She's a very sweet, very smart cat and she and I have a very deep and trusting bond. This would be a lot harder if my other cat, Reischa, was the one who got sick. Gracie understands that I'm taking care of her, and she trusts me, so she's in good spirits still. Margaret and I think she'll bounce back and be walking again soon, based on the timeline of when she's bounced back from previous rounds of chemotherapy, but it's scary.

One of the things my regular vet said to me in our first appointment when she was paralyzed was "it depends on how much hospice care you're willing to give". This is kind of the first time it's felt like hospice care to me - carrying her to the litter box, helping her move around between different favorite spots, interpreting what she needs when she starts fussing. It's got me thinking about hospice care in general; caring for and being cared for; the experiences of dying and end-of-life disabilities. Not thinking about like I'm drawing any conclusions or new ideas, but just mulling them over, meditating on it.

I've felt a lot of deep grief at different points in this process, but right now I feel comfortable. The experience of caring for her is satisfying in a deep way; knowing that I'm doing right by her, that she knows that I love her. That she's as comfortable and as happy as I can make her, given the circumstances.

There's no conclusion to this post, I guess because this story is not yet concluded. Nobody knows what will happen next; we know where it will end, but not when. There's some treatment possibilities we haven't attempted yet, which might or might not get us more time. We'll see.

She's a special girl. Everyone says that about their pets, but... Margaret and I have often remarked to each other that while we love Reischa just as much, and she's special to us, Reischa is not unusual for a cat. Gracie is special in a much stronger sense - I won't know another cat like her after she's gone.

I picked up Gracie from the vet earlier today. She's doing great, although she's a little hoarse. She had a rough 24 hours, with a lot of yelling, I think. The vet said she has "personality". I'm glad she's home.

I'm also done with work until the 31st, which is great. It's been a long while since I took this much time off at once and I'm looking forward to it a lot. I wish I could travel *and* be at home with Gracie. It sucks that I'll be leaving her alone so soon after she had to go into the hospital overnight. Only for a few days right now, but it'll be about a week, later when I go to see my dad for Christmas.

So today had some drama to it. Gracie, my cat, is diabetic, and first off, she is okay! But it was scary for a bit.

I had to leave for work early today, so I asked Margaret to give Gracie her morning insulin dose, the syringe was on the counter. Unfortunately, there was also a different sized syringe elsewhere on the counter, from a different medication that she'd had recently. Margaret saw that one first. Normally Gracie gets 4 units of insulin, twice a day, but Margaret accidentally gave her somewhere between 20 and 40 units of insulin before she realized her mistake.

She tried texting me because she sort of felt like it was the wrong size, but I was in a meeting at the time without my phone, so I didn't see any of her messages until later, at which point I'd missed a lot of "EMERGENCY" texts and Margaret was already on her way to the emergency vet with Gracie. I left work to join her.

She gets glargine insulin, which is slow release, so it hadn't really started hitting her yet before she was in the care of the vet. She's in the hospital still, where they're keeping a close eye on her blood glucose levels, and have her on a sugar IV. She's stable at around 78 BG right now, which is the low end of normal, and probably lower than she's been in a while.

They aren't really sure how long she'll need to be there, because they don't have a record of a cat getting an overdose of this kind of insulin.

I feel bad - I told my dad about it on the phone a little bit ago but I forgot the rule of telling him that she was okay up front, and made him worry while I was explaining what happened.

So she's okay, but having a bad day, and in good hands. And I need to keep my phone on me.

---

Side note, I mourn the lack of the kitten mood icon set here on DW, but I will accept its spiritual successor, the bunny set.