The Hardest Thing

I just don't know where to start. I haven't shed this many tears since my parents died. I cried when we had to put Judy to sleep. Judy was my little calico that was with me for nearly 23 years. But that was not as hard as this. Probably because I expected Hefner to be with me until he was closing in on 23 years old. But he's only nine.

I noticed he was losing weight back in the spring. I took him to the vet and they ran multiple tests on him and he checked out okay on everything. We thought up all kinds of reasons why he might have lost weight - maybe he picked up a worm from one of the mice he caught and nibbled on. Maybe he was stressed out by that stray tom cat that tried to invade his yard. Maybe the last dose of Revolution was too strong. All sorts of things could have caused that weight loss. Maybe all he needed was a different food.

But when you're with someone (and my Hefner is someone!) every day you don't necessarily notice the severity of the weight loss. After all, he seemed relatively healthy other than he was losing weight. He was still being Hefner - patrolling the perimeter of the yard, chasing squirrels and catching mice in the garden. But we couldn't ignore that weight loss. By this time he'd lost about 40% of his body weight.

Test after test turned up nothing and it was recommended we take him to a specialist. That's when they determined that my Hefner has cancer. These specialists don't want to tell you much. While I didn't really like what the Internet sources had to say, I'm glad I saw it. The prognosis wasn't good. The intestinal cancer was too far in to make endoscopy possible - they wanted to investigate it surgically to determine which of two cancers it was. We didn't allow it. It really wasn't going to make any difference which cancer it was. Even though the treatment for each type differed, the end result was that he "might" live two months to one year if we went ahead with the treatment. And he would probably be sick for most of that time he had left. Without treatment, he would probably only last two to six weeks.

At the time, he was still acting pretty much like himself and we decided to let him be himself and not inflict him with constant trips to the vet where he'd be poked and prodded. If it would have extended his life I would have subjected him to a few months of treatment. But it just didn't seem worth it for two months to a year. If I'm realistic, it still doesn't - especially when you factor in quality of life.

Over the weekend he stopped being himself. He didn't go outside. He retreated to a hiding place in the closet and stayed there pretty much all weekend - it's the place he goes when he doesn't feel good. He'd stopped sleeping at the foot of the bed a few weeks ago. He's not following me around the way he used to.  And he's getting even thinner. I so much wanted to see evidence that he was putting on weight. I wanted that doctor to be wrong. (I'd taken Judy to a specialist when she was 18. They said she "might" have a brain tumor and that they needed to operate. I decided not to do that. After all, she was already 18 - old for a cat. She was good for another five years - and then she went into kidney failure - nothing to do with any brain tumors.) So I was praying that this vet was just wrong.

But I also read the list of symptoms for these cancers on the web and I don't believe the vet was wrong. And hiding in a closet all day doesn't constitute good quality of life, even with Mark and I making frequent visits to cuddle him and make a fuss of him.

So I've made an appointment to put him to sleep. Mark and I will both be with him. I hope my crying doesn't upset him too much. And I hope he knows just how much we love him.