So my best buddy, Nobaru, past away. He was a cat, barely made it to 15 years old. It's been about a month and a half since his passing. Intestinal cancer of the lymphoma variety is what took him. I asked the vet is stress can trigger cancer cells a week prior to his passing, and she told my wife and I that while not scientifically proven, there's been studies to support such claims.
I preface with all of that because my wife and I have been destroyed with guilt with that knowledge. Back in Dec, 2017, Nobaru developed a cough. It went away, came back, away, back, you get the point. It persisted. He loved to eat Christmas trees, and he was coughing up a lot of pine needles, so we chalked it up to that. It went away, but came back in Feb '18, and persisted into March '18. We took him to a vet, who quickly diagnosed him with heart disease. This dude put him on lasix for damned near 6 months; at max dosage. As the cough went away, permanently (about 2 months into the treatment), we continued to let the vet treat him. Nobaru became seriously dehydrated, lost his back teeth, and wouldn't eat! This vet said he was fine, and his heart murmur was worse, and wanted to raise his dosage.
We switched vets.
Although the new vets, who specialized in cats, said the other vet was basically a hack, they said they had their work cut out for them. Dangerously dehydrated, not pooping, not eating...nothing (oh, no heart murmur, and no heart disease neither). We spent lot of cash to nurse our baby back to health, and in Oct, 2018, he was well enough to eat, poop, all of it. Then November hit, day before Thanksgiving, he was diagnosed with Cancer. Vet gave him 2 weeks. The sister clinic told us to try a steroid and chemo treatment, it may work (we didn't do any surgeries, he was too old, and didn't want to put him through that). We tried that, he lived to May of 2019.
I do not know why I told the whole damned story, but we feel like we mis-handled the train wreck, which lead to his death. The guilt is killing us. I know we'll get over it eventually, but I felt like perhaps getting this off my chest somewhere other that my wife who is also feeling the same would help (we just dwell in what ifs, it makes it worse). Who knows.
I know some people will think "it's just an animal." Yea, maybe, but my wife and I cannot conceive, so Nobaru was the closest we had to raising a child that we had together.
It hurts.
I preface with all of that because my wife and I have been destroyed with guilt with that knowledge. Back in Dec, 2017, Nobaru developed a cough. It went away, came back, away, back, you get the point. It persisted. He loved to eat Christmas trees, and he was coughing up a lot of pine needles, so we chalked it up to that. It went away, but came back in Feb '18, and persisted into March '18. We took him to a vet, who quickly diagnosed him with heart disease. This dude put him on lasix for damned near 6 months; at max dosage. As the cough went away, permanently (about 2 months into the treatment), we continued to let the vet treat him. Nobaru became seriously dehydrated, lost his back teeth, and wouldn't eat! This vet said he was fine, and his heart murmur was worse, and wanted to raise his dosage.
We switched vets.
Although the new vets, who specialized in cats, said the other vet was basically a hack, they said they had their work cut out for them. Dangerously dehydrated, not pooping, not eating...nothing (oh, no heart murmur, and no heart disease neither). We spent lot of cash to nurse our baby back to health, and in Oct, 2018, he was well enough to eat, poop, all of it. Then November hit, day before Thanksgiving, he was diagnosed with Cancer. Vet gave him 2 weeks. The sister clinic told us to try a steroid and chemo treatment, it may work (we didn't do any surgeries, he was too old, and didn't want to put him through that). We tried that, he lived to May of 2019.
I do not know why I told the whole damned story, but we feel like we mis-handled the train wreck, which lead to his death. The guilt is killing us. I know we'll get over it eventually, but I felt like perhaps getting this off my chest somewhere other that my wife who is also feeling the same would help (we just dwell in what ifs, it makes it worse). Who knows.
I know some people will think "it's just an animal." Yea, maybe, but my wife and I cannot conceive, so Nobaru was the closest we had to raising a child that we had together.
It hurts.
