Waiting in the parking lot at the vet’s office on Monday, I was optimistic Tabby would be fine. I figured she had a UTI. Something easy peasy to treat.
My first indication something more serious was up was when Dr. Spivey called a half an hour later –called because due to coronavirus techs do curbside pickup of the pets while their parents wait in their cars to get info about the exam.
Anyway, Dr. Spivey asked if I’d ever been told Tabby had a heart murmur.
No.
Dr. Spivey had detected a medium one, which was alarming and a little concerning but something we could manage once we figured out what was making Tab visit the litter box every 5 minutes.
Because of the heart murmur, though, our vet suggested a full blood panel to make sure nothing else was going on in addition to a urinalysis. I thought that sounded prudent.
Little did I know just 48 hours later my world would be rocked with the first concerning news. Tabby’s kidney values were really high. The first step would be to admit her to the pet hospital and administer fluids to see if that could help stabilize them.
We hoped she’d be away from us a day max. However, at the end of the first day, Dr. Spivey asked if we’d be okay with them keeping her another day. Because of her heart murmur, they were cautious to give her the fluids at the full rate because it could flood her lungs and cause heart failure.
But with one more day they could give her a full dose of fluids, retest and hopefully her values would have stabilized.
It all looked promising until the test results came back this afternoon. Instead of going down, her kidney values had gone up.
Tabby’s kidneys are failing. She has at best days to live unless she starts eating.
I had not braced myself for the possibility I’d get a death diagnosis.
Not that she’s dead yet. We got to pick her up. We hope we get at least the weekend with her, if not longer.
But of course we want her to have quality of life. We don’t want her in pain or suffering.
But the second we got her home she had to suffer us loving all over her. I will miss her scent, the weight of her snuggling on me, and the silky soft feel of her fur. I just want to imprint the sensory feelings of all that on my memory as much as I can with however much time I have left with her.
After half an hour, she extracted herself from my embrace and put herself in time out in the sunroom for a little bit.
“Too much loving, Mom!”
I wanted to follow her out there, but I knew. I was overdoing it. She had just come home from two days in the hospital. She was disoriented and exhausted.
And she seems to understand, as all our pets have seemed to in their end days, that our time together is almost over. It seems she’s mourning that too. We all have to come to grips with this sad, sudden news in our own way and time.
So, even though I want her near me every moment until the last one comes, I’m fighting the impulse to smother-lovin’ her.
And in true Tabby Cat style, the second she heard me clicking on my laptop, here she came.
“Time to stop typing and love me, mom.”
Yes it is, Tabby Girl.