Just over seven weeks ago we thought we had mere days left with Tabby. That’s the word the doctor had given us.
Kidney failure.
If we were lucky we’d have one last weekend with her. I struggled to give our dying cat space.
Well, turns out she wasn’t ready to kick the bucket.
We brought her home on a Friday evening and things looked pretty grim Saturday and especially Sunday morning when we woke up. She was displaying many of the signs the vet had warned us she might to signal she had winded down into Death Mode. She wasn’t eating. She was hiding behind the bed and not coming out. She didn’t want to be with us.
We went for a walk the morning of Sunday, May 17, with heavy hearts. It looked like we weren’t going to get a complete final weekend with her after all.
The walk was to help us wrap our minds around the grim task ahead of us that day. Selfishly we wanted to keep her around as long as possible, but not at her expense. If she was miserable, hurting and had no quality of life, there was no way we would let her suffer.
We came back from our walk and I headed upstairs to take a shower. There she was waiting for me.
“She’s out from behind the bed!” I yelled down to Wayne.
She tried to nibble a bit of food I’d brought up for her the day before and drank some water.
“We have to get a second opinion,” Wayne and I both agreed.
So we did.
We found our old vet (who is actually young). There had been a bit of a kerfuffle between her and the vet we’ve used ever since we’ve lived here, 15 years. Her departure was fraught with drama.
We’d heard that she’d gone out on her own and was now a mobile vet, but was she doing that during all this coronavirus?
Yes.
She had been the one to see Mr. Meow through all of his ailments. She’d even been the one to spay Tab when we’d first found her. I trusted she would tell us if there was anything else we could try, short of dialysis. That was the only option the other vet had offered, but had admitted it wasn’t very realistic.
Dr. Singleton listened to Tabby’s story and surprised us when she said, “When the office opens Monday, get her records and send them to me. But I’ll also come check her out.”
Later that evening Tabby came down to sit on Wayne’s lap, per their usual routine. Well, the one before we got the diagnosis. She hadn’t done that since we’d brought her back from the hospital. But when she did again that Sunday night, we knew we’d made the right decision to not give up on our girl.
Dr. Singleton came the next day and gave Tabby fluids, antibiotics, B12, and cold laser therapy, plus a couple other things.
She didn’t detect a heart murmur. She also felt Tabby wasn’t presenting like a cat who wanted to die. She was purring and seemed to actually be loving all the attention.
We’ve kept up with fluids as needed ever since, along with B12 and whatever else Dr. Tobe feels Tab might benefit from.
A couple of weeks ago Tabby took a bit of a mental turn and seemed to develop dementia, particularly Sundowners. She’s picked up a few new fun habits with that, but…she’s still eating and other than having some moments of anxiety at inconvenient times (like the middle of the night where she stands on our chests and screams us awake), she’s been doing great.
We may not have much longer with her, but we’ve had at least seven more weeks to love on her.
And she’s loved us back. She’s joined us for backyard movie nights, and will reluctantly share our laps when we demand to sit in one of the camp chairs. She has decided camp chairs are perfect Tabby perches.
Mostly I’m just once again grateful to Dr. Singleton for being an old-school vet. One who’s not run by a private equity (which is what happened with our old vet, they got bought out by one). She puts pets over profit.
Not that she works for free, but she understands Tab –or any of her clients’ fur kids– are not pets. They are our family.
Health is the first wealth, but family is more precious than gold. And family isn’t always comprised of blood relatives.
Some have whiskers, fur, four paws and lots of ‘tude. Like our Tabby Girl.