To my caring furiends ~ I want to thank you for all the support and love you have shown during my illness that began in early April. It has been a journey filled with hope and despair. I can't begin to address or update my journey at this writing.
Most of you know that I made my Rainbow Bridge journey yesterday at 1:35pm (EST). It was not really expected but my meowmy awoke to find me struggling for breath and knew I was critical. She rushed me to my doc doc who immediately put me in oxygen and gave me lasix to try to remove the fluid from my lungs that was causing my distress. I arrived at my doc doc's sometime around 8:30... meowmy says yesterday was a blur and some specific times are forgotten in her panic. I will let her write more about it when she feels up to doing so.
The song I chose to play for a while is If Tomorrow Never Comes and this is from me to my meowmy. You see, Meowmy stays up late most nights and sometimes she falls asleep while watching late night TV. She would awaken to find me looking at her from the back of the sofa. I liked to watch my meowmy sleep. So, I thought the song to be appropriate from me to my meowmy. For me, tomorrow will never come again. I know how much my meowmy loves me and she knows how much I love her. I watched from my lifeless body yesterday as my meowmy stroked me and kissed me and saw her tears freely falling all over my fur. I wanted to tell her it was okay and that I was no longer suffering but I could not make her hear my words. I know that Meowmy is hurting very badly now and I hope to give her my sweet comforting biscuits. I hope she can feel it.
Thank you to all who have sent stars and gifties for my page to help comfort my meowmy and me. I will try to write a thank you to each of you when I am able. For now, please know your furiendship and love are deeply felt and appreciated.
Well, now.... isn't this a fine pickle? The title of my diary should actually be Oops!... Meowmy Did It Again... because it is her fault. We thought we would use Britney Spears song title, however. All of us kitties thing this will be our new mantra... *shakes head*
I was excited to learn that I had been chosen as one of the DDP honorees yesterday. It was so nice of Catster HQ and the Diary Gal to select me.
I want to say special thanks for two lovely picture mementos from Big Harry and from Rory, Tundra, Manytoes and Lynzee. I am posting those pictures on my page.
Meowmy never got back to my birthday diary so I will aim to finish it later in this diary writing.
First, I am so behind on my POP gifties and messages I received in April and May. Thank you to Leo and furmily, Mocha and furmily, Angel Rebby, Luke, Kaci Sunshine and furmily, Big Harry and furmily and Angel Wanda and furmily for the meaningful POP gifties you sent me during April. Thanks to Angel Buddie for the blue ribbon and special get well message.
Thank you to Angel Wanda and furmily for my fun yarn ball, Aedan for my birthday hat, Blade and furmily for my yummy shrimp, Teebo and furmily for my lucky lady bug, Morticia and furmily for my heart, Big Harry and furmily for my shrimp, Ozzy and Harriet for my blue ribbon and Tessa and furmily for my baseball. All the messages were so lovely. Thanks to Mocha and furmily for my furever crown and Cleo for my furever gold heart. Your messages were so special.
On my birthday, I received a red heart from the ARG with a nice welcome to Olde Furts. Thank you to the ARG.
On May 9, I received POP from Cleo, in addition to the lovely furever giftie she sent me.
On May 10, I received a purrty bluebird from Zack and Zoey with concats for my DDP honor.
I received a nice birthday greeting from Phantom and DDP concats from Smile Cassanova and Angel Buddie and furmily. Thanks to all of you for helping me celebrate my birthday, DDP honors and MOST OF ALL POP for my health.
Let me get to what is going on with me, for those who do not know. My meowmy was loving on me in early April... a furry common, daily event. She noticed a very small lump on my side... rather like a bb in size under the skin but not that hard. She called my doc doc and scheduled my physical and rabies shot on April 2. The doc doc said she wanted to do a needle aspiration of the site. It showed some odd cells and my doc doc said she wanted to operate to remove it. Since Easter was coming up that weekend, they (Meowmy and the doc doc) decided to wait until the 10th to do the surgery. My doc doc shaved that area and removed a good deal of the surrounding tissue and sent it off to be biopsied. The initial report came back "iffy" and the doc performing the tests requested permission to do more testing. All of those reports came back "normal" but there was a note on the papers to keep this doc informed of my health status. Meowmy should have figured out then that something was not exactly right but she breathed a sigh of relief and gave thanks that I did not show up as having cancer. My doc doc was afraid of some type of blood cancer. I seemed to be healing well and moving along as per normal when suddenly on May 1 about noon, I came running into the catputer room and jumped on Meowmy and was licking like mad at the site of my operation and on the other side and fur was flying and I was meowing funny and rather loudly... I kept it up all the rest of the day off and on. I was "normal" other than that. However, on the 2nd, I did not show ANY interest in eating and was wanting to lay on the granite counter... Meowmy offered me some canned W/D and I did eat some of that but did not offer to get up. Meowmy called my doc doc and she said bring me right on in... she examined me... felt all around my operation site and sides... she said that I might be having some inflammation issues or an allergy and gave me some prednisilone. She said if that helped me, then we would have our answer...
When I returned home, I immediately went into the interior bathroom and got in the tub... I remained there all the rest of the day and showed NO interest in food. I was still scratching and shaking and licking. Meowmy called my doc doc at 3:30 to tell her of my unusual behavior. She scheduled another visit for early the next morning (May 3rd). I was to see the new doc doc because my doc doc was off. Dr. Montgerard immediately palpitated my tummy and told my meowmy that I had a very enlarged kidney on one side and wanted to xRay it... she did and told Meowmy that I needed to have an ultrasound. That was scheduled for the next day, May 4th with Dr. Dodd. She is the doc doc who has done ultrasounds on Baby G, Hooch and Mojo. She travels to the different hospitals now. She was coming to my doc doc's on the very next day... that was convenient. So, I was scheduled for a 2PM ultrasound. My doc doc was in that day and went into the room with Dr. Dodd.
When my doc doc came out, my meowmy knew it was not good. Her first words to my meowmy were, "It is bad... very bad." Not only do I have a mass in my kidney but two other masses. Dr. Dodd requested permission to do an FNA (fine needle aspiration on the spots) and Meowmy gave her permission to do so. They anesthetized me and did their work. They sent me home with buprenorphine for pain and said they should have the results by today. Actually, they will have it but the facility is on the West Coast and it won't be ready until after 4 their time... so, we will have to wait until Monday to get the results of my testing.
At this moment, my doc doc suspects either lymphoma or plasma cell cancer. Neither is desirable. Meowmy is very upset but I am doing my best to console her.
My big brofur Hooch went to his specialist yesterday. Overall, he got a purrty good report. They reduced his insulin to 1 1/2 units twice daily. His labs came back in today and overall were good. Dr. Jaeger said he may lengthen the time between his Leukeran doses in a month. His liver values were slightly elevated but Dr. Jaeger said that he was comfortable with it for now.
My meowmy has been helping her furiend who is almost 92 with his kitties. His oldest kitty named Tiger was diagnosed with CRF two years ago and has done well until the past week. Meowmy took Crawford and Tiger to his doc doc and they found a hard mass in his tummy. Tiger may have cancer, too. Meowmy is going to give Tiger a sub Q on Saturday and then again early in the week and see how she thinks he is doing... Tiger's doc doc told Meowmy that she is fearful that Tiger's time has come. Tiger is 16 years old and his owner really loves him... His owner is close to having to go to a nursing facility himself... he is getting feeble, according to my meowmy. It is a furry sad situation for all.
Many thanks for celebrating my birthday, my DDP honors but MOST of all the POP... I really need those prayers. Thank you. My love to each of you.
Today I celebrate my 10th birthday! Meowmy is very excited that I am able to celebrate this birthday. We have had some most disturbing news in recent months and this will probably be my last earthly birthday. Meowmy is not happy about this but is trying to prepare all of us for what is to come.
Meowmy will help me write more about that later today but she has to get ready to take her almost 92 year old furiend to the vet with his kitty Tiger. Tiger is suffering from renal failure and has lived for several years since the diagnosis. He has not done well this past week and his owner is afraid his time has come. So Meowmy is going to help him but she promised to help me write more so I can update my furiends about what is going on with me and my current diagnosis when she gets back from helping Crawford with Tiger.
I received a nice birthday hat this morning from my furiend Harry and his pawsome furmily. Thank you for remembering me on my birthday. Please remember Harry and his furmily as his doggie brofur Toby had to make his Bridge journey yesterday. We send our love to the whole furmily.
5:27PM EST ~Meowmy ended up having to spend much longer with Crawford and Tiger at his vet and told me she will help me write a much longer note later tonight. You see, today is my human sisfur-in-law's birthday, too. My pawrents are going out to celebrate Julie's birthday and Meowmy doesn't have enough time to write what I want to say.
I saw I received lots of nice gifties and had a few more birthday messages. I will mention each of them later but wanted to thank each of you for the kind thoughts and gifties. Much love from ME!
Ask a Cat Lady: Why Does My Cat Love Knocking Things Down?
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