The roller-coaster ride of old pets, another dip, another rise.
Took my dear old Bug boy in today to our outstanding vet office, East Carolina Veterinary Service, sure in that awful down-in-the-bones way it was over, or the start of over, and even the vet was bracing me for the worst of news. Old boy has kidney disease, stage 2 last we checked through lab work some months back, and was these past two days showing all the signs (little going in, nothing coming out) of the onset of renal failure, a heartbreak outcome I’ve been railing against with broths and tinctures of this and that, stomach-soothing slippery elm, coconut oil and aloe juice; a hint of black pepper, for appetite; turmeric for inflammation; amino acid compounds to bind to his inevitable phosphorous buildup and to boost his overall kidney function. But the battle is ultimately unwinnable, with me just making an uncertain deal to cheat death in the meantime, and I’ve been a wreck for days as he’s started to seem to slip in that grim direction.
So the numbers come back from the vet: stage 2, still. Not much has changed in kidney function. Certainly no renal failure; we’ve held the line. I breathed out some anguish, immediately breathing in a little new worry.
As in, yay! And now what?
When is the next shoe gonna drop?
My excellent seester Michele gave me expectedly excellent advice, which anyone who knows me knows I am poorly hard-wired to follow:
Try to enjoy the space between shoes.
Because for now I’m simply left with an increasingly skinny, wobby old cat of insurmountable importance to me, who has apparent dementia, causing him trouble remembering to eat or drink, and who may have some other difficult-to-detect dreaded thing wrong with him, but then again, he may not. He may just be batshit, or rather, catshit crazy …
You’re getting me right there with you, old buddy. Right there with you.
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Sincerest empathies, my friend. It ain’t easy, but your sister is right.
A few years back we went through a similar situation with our first Newf, Amy. She’d turned up with a spinal tumor they termed ‘aggressive’ … as in, she’ll be dead within a few weeks. I was crushed, of course. But that ol’ gal wasn’t convinced. She ended up hanging around almost another year. In the end, of course, it was unwinnable .. but it did give me plenty of opportunity …. NOT to say goodbye .. but to tell her, and show her, how much she was loved. She let me know when it was finally time, and yeah, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do … but I did The Thing We Dread knowing we’d had almost a full year of knowing, and of unfettered love. That helped me get through.
Love that cat …. he’ll do the rest ….
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This old boy is on so many additional lives, I’m amazed, and thrilled, by his sheer persistence, as he is such a phenomenal dude. Twice I was sure he was down for the count with other major issues, and twice he rallied, admittedly with a lot of help. Lisa keeps having to remind me: You’ve beaten the odds with both the old cats, time and again. My vet even said to me: I’m convinced that no one else could have kept this animal alive like you have, with all that’s been against him. For me, as you well understand for yourself, that’s just par for the course. You keep them as long as you can keep them, happy as they can be. And then, when the happy runs out, and the time with it, you crush yourself like an aluminum can, and do what you must.