Cody

Cody is our cat. She is 17 years old. When a cat is that old you know they move a little slower, go through times when they want to hide, more often not be touched, and sometimes neglect their meticulous cleaning regime. For the last week or two she has been sleeping a lot, hiding under the bed, not keeping herself clean, and not eating her wet food at night. She has also had a runny nose and raspy breathing. On Saturday Deer noticed that she was drooling and her chin had what looked liked dried blood on it. We cleaned her face, and checked her gums for more missing teeth. We guessed she lost a tooth. On Sunday she seemed better, and was spent an entire movie on my lap sleeping. But she still wasn’t eating. On Monday she was the same. Yesterday she was out and about for awhile so I tried feeding her at that time thinking she is up and she might eat if I stayed with her. She tried- she licked all the gravy off the food and started drooling again. So I made a vet appointment.
I was worried she had a serious infection or had had a stroke. I wasn’t worried about her runny nose or the breathing she has spring allergies like people do. Today we took her to the vet. She has a tumor in the back of her mouth and throat. The vet says she can’t eat. She is starving to death. If she doesn’t starve she may suffocate. They could do surgery but it would be very expensive and she still may not be able to swallow afterwards. It is growing relatively fast she was at the vet less than six months ago and she didn’t have a tumor then. So I could be cancer or I could come back. She is so old and has a thyroid problem too so the anesthesia could kill her. We made the hard choice to put her to sleep. We will take her back to the vet tomorrow. We don’t want her to suffer starving to death. And truthfully the cost is also way out of our capabilities. She has lived a long life and she is has been happy for most of it. She has been a good companion and I have to be a good owner and stop her suffering now.
Do I sound convincing, because tomorrow I have to be able to let her go. I don’t want to. I have cried all day long ever since we the doctor told us the news. My kids took the news better than I did. I am a basket case. I didn’t go to class today. I cried and cried like a big baby. My heart is breaking. She has been so alert today as if she is trying to prove to us that she will be ok- don’t do this. Maybe she thinks we will give her medicine. Every other time she has felt bad we take her to the vet she has to suffer medicine but she feels better. Maybe she is waiting to feel better. But she doesn’t know she is not going to feel better. I have always helped her feel better when she was sick and in return she sleeps next to me and cuddles with me when I’m sick. Now I can’t do anything but stop her suffering sooner rather than later.
Now I’m crying again. I posted bunch of pictures of her on my other blog.