yoonamania

So I’m trying to get on with my life. I’ve been depressed and miserable. Losing Grizzley hit me hard. He’s been with me 14 years and I spent more time with him than with anybody else in my adult life if not my whole life. I loved him and he loved me probably much more than I loved him. He could not stand not to be able to touch me. His favorite place to loll about was my neck and shoulder area. His favorite pastime was to knead on my hair purring up the storm. I’m still having a hard time and I haven’t been able to go into “his” room yet. If you are one of those who are itching to say “it’s JUST a cat!”, don’t say it because I will surely hate you and wish you a very slow and painful death.

Anyway.

Getting back to blogging is one of the first things I’ve thought of as a way to get on with my life. Oh well, it’s the only thing, actually. But I’ll start with this although I find it hard to blog after a long break.

February 19th, 2005, I had Thanta put to sleep. He had gastrointestinal cancer. The same disease that has been gnawing away Grizzley’s health and life.

Thanta was one of Grizzley’s litter mates. Grizzley was the second one to be born out of a litter of four and Thanta was the last to be born. Thanta was the runt of the litter, he was always left alone by himself, and my friends told me not to take him because they thought he would soon die. I took him home anyway along with Grizzley.

Thanta loved eating. He absolutely lived to eat. At first, he would spend 30 minutes  and upwards, several times a day, at the food dish making all kind of noise indicating he’s eating ravenously, accompanied by very loud purring. His paws would be in the food dish kneading the food while he’s sucking the juice out of it with his entire face buried in it. So after he’s done, all the food would still remain there. I attributed this to the fact that he was the runt and didn’t get to suck on his mommy’s teats as much. Whatever the reason, that was how he used to eat in the first couple of months with me, and after each meal, I would have to hurry up and wash his face clean because otherwise the juice from the food would dry up quickly and since his eyes were closed while his face was buried in the food, he would be very uncomfortable with his eyes looking like two slits no matter how hard he would paw at it.

Oh and did I mention he loved eating? He used to wake me up at four in the morning to be fed. First, he just sat down on my chest and stared at me, which used to wake me up for a short time, but I got used to it pretty fast. When that stopped working in getting his early breakfast, he started putting one paw on my face sitting on my chest. That worked a little longer than just sitting and staring. But I got used to it fast enough because don’t you know I love sleeping? But Thanta’s early breakfast would not be denied for long because he would sit on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out and put a little pressure on them. Just some harmless threat. It took some time for me to get used to it and he employed this method for a while. But then my love for sleep finally overcame it, I called him on his bluff and was able to sleep through it. But Thanta was prepared. The next time he sat on my chest, put his paw on my face, let his claws out, put a little pressure and started running his claws down my face slowly. Oh, he didn’t scratch me. He was careful so that he didn’t scratch me. And he won. I never did get used to that. And I grudgingly but faithfully fed him at four in the morning every single day.

Once, when my friend was cat-sitting Grizzley and Thanta (I didn’t have my dogs back then), Thanta tried the same method to wake up my friend even though Thanta hated people other than myself and he avoided my friend all day everyday except to get fed. One day my friend did not want to get up, so he put the bed sheet over his face to prevent Thanta’s paw from reaching his face. A couple of minutes later, he saw a paw pushed underneath the sheet and then the paw started feeling around, just as he saw in the cartoons like Tom and Jerry or Silvester and Tweety. He started laughing so hard, he was wide awake in no time and Thanta was fed promptly.

I miss him. I miss his little paw on my face every morning.

Grizzley bounded back up again. This morning, he was occupying his usual morning lounging place on top of a small cat condo in the room upstairs basking in the morning sun light, where he hadn’t had the strength to go up for a couple of days prior. He ate a good amount, not as much as usual, but not too shabby. When I was leaving for work, he was back in his morning lounging place.

A diuretic has been added to his daily medication. I will probably take him back to the vet on Friday or Saturday so that I don’t have to run to the emergency vet clinic Saturday night or on Sunday.

Thank you so so very much for your prayers, thoughts, love and support. It means a lot and we appreciate it so so very much.

Grizzley is again at the vet. I stayed up until five this morning trying to decide if it’s time. I don’t want him to suffer needlessly but I don’t want to put him down if he’s still fighting and hasn’t given up.

As much as I watched him, I couldn’t tell. He kept going to his food bowls, a little too often, tried to eat, but couldn’t eat more than a bite. Yesterday he probably ate about a quarter of the amount he normally eats. He couldn’t stay lying in one position for more than 10 minutes at a time. He couldn’t make himself comfortable. He made sounds that resembles moaning or groaning sounds when he changed his position. He was alert. He started purring as soon as my hand touched him. He had hard time breathing. He was wobbly. I didn’t know what to do.

My friend, who I made the arrangement with, to drive me to the vet when I have to put Grizzley to sleep, called around 6:45 in the morning to see if he should come to drive me to the vet  or he should go to work. I still didn’t know. We decided he should go to work, and see later and he’d leave work early if it had to be done today.

After I took the dogs out, however, Grizzley was following me around in the kitchen, weak as he was and breathing laboriously, rubbing against my ankle and meowing and purring. He still had life in his eyes and he hasn’t given up yet. So I got ready for work, put him in the carrier, drove to the vet and dropped him off so that they could make him more comfortable and take the fluid out of his lungs again. And I’ll have another sleepless night with Grizzley.

Just came back from the emergency vet clinic near me. Grizzley’s breathing started sounding labored a little last night. I decided to take him to Dr. L on Monday since they are closed on Sunday. Towards this evening, however, his breathing was too labored and he started wheezing even. The emergency clinic vet took about 150cc of fluid out of his lungs. I don’t know how it accumulated so much in such a short time without me noticing and he didn’t even lose appetite. What worries me more though, is that his temperature is 3 or 4 degrees lower than normal, which, they say, indicates poor blood circulation. But after taking the fluid out, Grizzley is much more alert and breathing much more freely without making any wheezing sound. He’s now sleeping right next to my butt, and I’m having a drink.

Grizzley has been eating everyday since Monday. He is wobbly and lost about 3lb, but I get to have at least another week with him. Thank you for your prayers and good wishes.

I had to take Grizzley to the vet yesterday morning. He has lost a bit more than a pound since Wednesday, and that would be more than 2 pounds altogether. The vet took 95cc of fluid out of his lungs - she said that she only took total 50cc out on Wednesday because he wouldn’t stay still, so she thinks he’d be comfortable throughout the weekend. We are hoping the upped dosage of prednisone would slow down the fluid forming soon. We just have to wait until the end of next week to see if it’s working.

In the mean time, he ate a tablespoonful of kibbles at the vet. For some reason, he didn’t touch any of the 5 different kinds of premium food - 3 canned and 2 dry - I gave him, but he went for friggin Science Diet. So they gave me a ziplock bag with Science Diet dry food. But at home, he hasn’t touched his food again. He’s not even eating the pill pockets, so the I have the liquid form of prednisone. I have to take him back to the vet on Monday if he doesn’t eat tonight. I’m going to try force feeding him with a syringe anyway.

Please please please pray for him. I need a little more time with him, Just a few more months is all I ask. Please…

Grizzley stayed at the hospital Wednesday night. It turns out that he does have lymphoma and now it has advanced to his chest cavity. The vet took the fluid out of his lungs a few times so he could breathe better and he finally ate something yesterday after starving himself for 2 days. The vet says that once at this stage, the disease advances rapidly and Grizzley has a couple of months at the most unless he decides to surprise us by responding really well to the medications, in which case I might have a few more months with him.

I took him home last night and so far, he has eaten only 2 oz of canned food while normally he should have finished 9 oz. But it might just be that the dosage of prednisone that we quadrupled just 2 days ago hasn’t taken considerable effect yet. If he doesn’t eat substantial amount by tomorrow morning, I have to take him back to the vet tomorrow.

Please please please keep your fingers crossed, say a prayer and send him good vibes so that he at least sees his 15th birthday, 28th of June, and also that his last days are not too painful to him and that I recognize the time to let him go when the time comes.

Regarding Blog365, that is. I decided it’s better for me that I don’t blog about the same miserable situation and I’m sure nobody wants to read it over and over either. And frankly, I have nothing else that occupies my mind these days, and so I have nothing. So I’m out of Blog365.