My cats names are O'Malley, Cerin, and Bitty. O'Malley is a beautiful, soft, big, black, male whom I have had for twelve years now. He will be thirteen this November. I grew up with him, having got him in 10th grade, and now here I am married and 27. Hes very healthy and has a distinct personality. He loves to be outside and has a wide diet. People get a kick out of it when I tell them he eats: olives, pickled jalapeno, mango, guacamole, black beans, cheese, yogurt, coconut oil,hummus, cat food, raw meat, wheatgrass, mint, and if he gets a hold of them, cigarettes (no I dont smoke, but have friends who do, so we have to hide the cigarettes). Hes very sweet and loving, loves to chase his 2 cat siblings around, but also is very content playing on his own.
Cerin is a huge, grey tabby male with GIANT green eyes. When people meet him they always remark on how big he is and his huge eyes. He always looks surprised 0.0 He will be nine in a few months, and I have had him since he was just a few months old. Hes a funny cat because he still thinks hes a baby. His meow is one you would expect to come from a tiny kitten, and he still will try and suckle any soft stuffed animals. Hes the sweetest and most cuddly of all my cats, he puts up with a lot of cuddles and squishes from me. Hes not as brave as his brother O'Malley and hes far more picky when it comes to food, but hes branching out (eating different foods and venturing further in to the backyard).
Bitty was originally named Merrick, but because shes so little, especially compared to my other two, she always is called Bee or Bitty. Shes my "accident" cat. She was kind of placed in my arms by a neighbor because someone just left her out front of a petshop. She was SO teeny when I got her. I originally just meant to care for her for awhile and then adopt her out, but of course I grew attached. Bitty is a tiny, incredibly soft, 6yr old, 6lb calico and grey tabby mix. She is very shy, in fact some people joke that they dont believe I have a third cat. Though it is important to note that she has become much more brave in the past year or so. Although shes rather shy with strangers, she is very talkative and loving when it comes to myself and people she knows well. She definitely relies on myself and her brother cats to help her feel more brave, especially when she goes outside with us or hears loud noises. She has been a bit of a challenge in the last few years because she has FIV (which is the Feline version of HIV), but so far it has not hurt her at all other than giving her a couple bladder infections.
I love my cats, a lot. They keep me company when my husband is gone for long periods of time. They sleep with me when Im feeling lonely, and O'Malley is my oldest friend. That is why Im so sad to write this next part.
This past October I felt a small lump on O'Malleys back. I gave it a few days and when I realized it wasnt going away, and had possibly grown I took him to the vet. The vet was very suspicious and wanted to set up an appt. right away to do surgery and figure what the mass was. A week later he had surgery, and then a few days after that I got the bad news. The lump was a feline fibrosarcoma, which is a local cancerous tumor, that is often times caused by a vaccination that caused inflammation (usually rabies shots). The good news was the vet felt like he got it all, the bad news was about 90% of these types of tumors grow back. Well unfortunately O'Malley is part of that 90%. Around the end of December I noticed a lump in the general area of his old surgery site. So I again took him to the vet, where he was fairly certain that the tumor had come back. So quickly?! Apparently sometimes they can even grow back within a month. This time the vet told me I should go see an Oncologist in a town an hour away from where we live. He set up an appointment for us two weeks later and off we went. O'Malley saw the Oncologist a few days ago, and while the prognosis isnt looking worst case scenario, its also not best case scenario. He had an xray, an ultrasound, and blood work done. Thankfully the cancer had not spread anywhere else (apparently this type likes to metastasize in the lungs) and his blood work looked great. The vet says unfortunately with these types of tumors, if you arent aggressive in the treatment, they almost always grow back, and it doesnt give the cat a very long lifespan. This was devastating to me, because even though O'Malley is considered old, he is still very healthy, happy, and he has no idea that hes old. So the plan for now is as follows: Wednesday the 15th of January O'Malley will go in for a CT scan, which will hopefully show us that the tumor is operable. Once the scan is done, if all looks good that same day he will go through another surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. Once that is all over and he has healed from the surgery (which will take about 2 weeks), he will start radiation therapy. Right now they are thinking it will be about 18 sessions (5 days a week).
Im trying to stay positive, but I am so incredibly upset. Not only am I upset for myself because Im having to do this without my husband, its incredibly expensive, and I love my cat, but also because I do not want him to have to go through any pain or fear. Ive told him whats happening, but you cant make an animal understand whats going on. So Im trying to spend as much time with O'Malley as I can and love on him tons, because if the worst case scenario happens we may not have him through the end of the year. Im hoping thats not the case, Im so sick with sadness and worry. I want my little guy to be happy and healthy until he dies of old age, not some stupid tumor from a vaccine that he didnt really need.
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*update: Omalley had his surgery on the 15th and it was more major than I thought! He came home with a foot long incision site and an esophageal feeding tube in place. Its been almost a week since his surgery and he is better everyday. He started to eat some food on his own yesterday, but Im still having to feed him through is feeding tube. I take him in next week to have his staples out as well as his feeding tube.
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