Having survived (somewhat knackered) the drawn-out move into our new place - which happened to coincide with a perfectly sunny day, thank goodness - we are still riding the disarray of unpacked boxes and general mayhem of "Where's the....? What did you do with.....? Have you seen the....?" And I'm still trying to figure out just where the heck did I pack my trousers?
And within days of the move we also bid a sad farewell to our much-loved camper van, which we sold for mostly financial reasons, with me still not having a permanent job lined up plus all the incoming costs from moving house - including the fact we've had to pay a full month's rent at both places this month.
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| Hard to believe relaxing scenes like this won't be happening for us this summer :-( |
Anyway, the van's gone off to join a rock band apparently, so if you ever hear of a group called 'Ridgewater', we just sold them their first tour bus. I actually like that idea - even if we're still feeling melancholy about selling.
I'd say more, about the van and post many more pictures of our amazing camping trips, but for now even the van isn't the main subject of this post.
Now, if I can write this next part without tears flooding my keyboard, it'll be a miracle.
Over last weekend we noticed Mishka looking more bloated than usual. Assuming it to be the usual chronic constipation she battles (surely not helped by the stress of us moving and packing boxes these past few weeks - although she handled the move really well and seems otherwise quite content) we added an extra dose of lactulose to her daily regime of gastro-intestinal medications....but to no avail. By Monday (3/25) I took her to the vet, fearing she was severely backed-up and might have mega colon. To my initial relief Dr Goldberg felt her tummy and said he really wasn't feeling too much poop in there and suggested an x-ray to see if anything else was going on. When he came back 15 minutes later the words, "I need you to come and look at the x-ray, I'm afraid it's not good news" were not what I expected nor wanted to hear. I could feel the blood drain from my face as we looked at Mishka's cloudy abdominal x-ray. There was almost nothing to see, just a milky cloud inside her abdomen that almost completely concealed her liver, spleen, kidneys etc. Then came the verdict - the bloating is because of severe fluid build-up in her abdomen, otherwise known as ascites and the main cause is usually cancer. He suggested taking a fluid sample via ultrasound and at the same time he drained 200ml of fluid from her abdominal area. That's a crazy amount of fluid and there really is no good news in this scenario. The fluid was sent off for testing, along with her blood and urine sample and we booked an emergency ultrasound the very next day, which confirmed there appears to be a growth in her pancreas plus what look like nodules spreading into her intestine that would signify pancreatic cancer that has possibly already spread.
On Wednesday, when the test results came back, we got the full picture, more or less, and there is no silver lining here. Even though the tests didn't prove 100% conclusive for cancer, the "best" case scenario is severe pancreatitis and/or even FIP (Feline Infectious Peritonitis), which does not bode at all well, least of all in a cat approaching 16 years old who's endured chronic gastro-intestinal issues in one way or another her whole life. Sadly, the most likely scenario is that she has pancreatic cancer and related abdominal/intestinal complications. Either way the outlook is grim. Our poor little furry princess Moo is in very bad shape and is not going to recover from this. In fact Dr Goldberg gently warned us that this will progress quickly towards a heartbreaking farewell to our very, very loved and wonderful Mishka. And that end feels like it's coming at us like a freight train.
Hard to believe that just a week earlier both Lorne & I were both commenting on how great she seemed. She was happy, eating well, hasn't been sick for ages (though on daily meds all the same) and even seemed to have a renewed spring in her step. She surprised us both recently by jumping up and joining the boys in chasing the laser-pointer toy. She raced after it almost as fast as they did and it's lovely to watch her play.
One week later and the story couldn't be more opposite. The best we can do for her now is to keep her comfortable, give her all our love and come to terms with the sadly inevitable - knowing to take her lead about how she's feeling and accept when the time is right to let her go. This is a horribly familiar road that we've been down too many times in the past few years and it breaks my heart to be here again.
After having the fluid drained last week she actually picked up considerably for a few days, even on Thursday & Friday she seemed like her old self again, was eating really well to the extent that, had we not got the awful diagnosis, it was hard to believe anything was wrong. But, since Saturday, she's been starting to fade. She's eaten virtually nothing since Friday evening, she's lethargic and the bloating came back. I took her back to the vet on Saturday and they were able to take another large amount of fluid from her abdomen. Thankfully she's so easy-going and placid that she tolerates the procedure - called an abdominocentesis - very well, but it's obviously not something we want to keep putting her through and there's a limited number of times it might even continue to have a positive (or any) effect. In fact, while she improved somewhat Saturday afternoon following the procedure, by the evening she seemed withdrawn again and refused to eat.
Bugger, here come the tears again. Deep breath.
Well, in an attempt to try and keep it somewhat together as I write this, let me first post a little collection of photos that I had put together on Facebook when I celebrated the 15th anniversary of this tiny, adorable bundle of fluff coming into my life (Sept. 17, 1997) - the $10 kitten bought on a rainy night at Steamworks pub (Gastown) just before heading home at the end of a beer-filled evening, having heard that a man at the bar had a bag of kittens he was selling.
She was so small when I first brought her home, that Vicky seriously thought she was a Beany Baby toy, laid on the back of the couch.....until Mishka opened her huge eyes.
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| She was smaller than a 6" side plate |
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| Scary Hallowe'en stance |
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| Hide and....sink. I'd looked everywhere for her and here she was, as cosy as anything. |
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| Perhaps my favourite baby pic |
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| Filed under "C" for cuuuuuute! |
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| I used to take her over to Vicky's with me - where Ellee was immediately enamoured and followed Mishka's every move. |
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| She wasn't at all impressed about being spayed, nor the cone-head attire. (Her one and only surgery.) |
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| One of her other favourite places to hide |
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| My little $10 kitten blossomed into the most stunning supermodel of cats with beautiful long, glossy hair and the most gentle personality. |
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| And this was in 2011, a lovely and very regal shot of our Princess Moo, taken by our friend, Mike Sudar. (You can hardly notice the bad haircut - which we had to start giving her to calm down the hairball barfing.) |
I honestly don't know how I'm going to get through the empty days ahead when I don't hear that little chatty voice of hers and see those huge eyes.
In my heart-of-hearts I know we've done everything we can for her, taken great care of her and attended to all her medical and emotional needs - to the extent she's still with us at almost 16 years old. (The same little cat that a rude and much less-diplomatic vet (let's call him Dr John Clark of Granville Island Veterinary Clinic) so vehemently cast off as having cancer almost 10 years ago! With a wave of his hand and an admonishing, "This cat has cancer, I'm telling you. We just haven't found it yet, but I know I'm right." Thank goodness Lorne and I did our own research & sought out a 2nd opinion - to the extent she's lived 9 more years! Needless to say we avoided taking any of the cats to see him again.
But with her fighting intestinal issues her whole life, we know we really have exhausted all treatment options, even prior to this latest diagnosis, which we are powerless to fix. It certainly doesn't make this whole thing suck any less, but it brings an ounce of solace knowing Mishka's enjoyed a full and very happy life, knowing only love, affection and the very best attention to whatever she's needed from us and we'll continue to keep her happiness and wellbeing top priority as we continue on this very difficult, short and oh-so-horribly-familiar path.
I love you with all my heart Mishka and I really, really, REALLY don't want you to go :-(
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