Stuff and thoughts

Took Blossom to the vet this morning and the vet gave her a good lookover and we talked about how she’d been recently. He thought he felt a mass around her stomach, so I left her with them for an x-ray and blood tests.

The flat felt very empty without her during the afternoon – even when she’s asleep I know she’s around. Which tells me that when she goes, I will definitely get another cat.

However, we’re not there yet, fortunately. The news isn’t great: she has a tumour in her liver/spleen area. The vet said they’d need to do a scan to work out whether it’s on her liver or her spleen, but I don’t think there’s much point in nailing that down as the vet and I agreed that what we should focus on is her quality of life. The good news is that it isn’t in her chest at all and the vet said he thought she’d withstand an operation, but he agreed with me that there’s not much point putting an 18-year-old cat through an operation. Clearly, if she were younger or if it would buy her another five years, I’d do it, but nothing is going to buy her another five years and I just don’t want to inflict the stress, pain and fear of an operation on her.

So she’s got some special food and has had some drugs that should spark off her appetite and certainly since she’s been home she’s been much more interested in food. Which is great – if she eats normally until the tumour starts making her life much more difficult, then we can have some good time together.

She was very wiped when she came home, though – she’d been given a very heavy-duty cocktail of valium and ketamine for the xray, and was pretty much out of it when I picked her up. When she got home she started coming to and has been staggering around a bit. The drugs have been wearing off all evening and she’s just (at 11.30) started purring, which is hugely reassuring, but I’m not surprised she’s trashed: I’ve seen humans on ketamine, and she’s a 3kg cat.

I don’t think she’s got much time left, but with care she should I hope have a good remainder of her life. When it starts going irreparably downhill, we’ll make the final trip to the vet, but I hope to have her with me for a bit longer.