Lola's fight with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (I'm going to say goodbye to my cat)

Thanks everybody!
Tonight Lola is doing much better than the past two days. She ate her syringe of food with no trouble at all. Then she explored part of the house, used the scratching post, used her litter tray, then she climbed my legs, reached my lap, kneaded my belly, made loud purrs and finally she curled up for a well deserved nap.
Tonight I'm happy.

We're going through highs and lows here. Yesterday in the morning Lola was a bit tired and down, last night she was full of energy and happy. Before going to bed she had a look at the bowls to see if some food was in them. She couldn't have eaten it, but the instinct led her to check. Then she drank some water. She can't lick it anymore, she bites the water, I went to bed light-hearted.

This morning she's down again. However she ate something this morning, though she wasn't too happy to do that. She fought the syringe a bit. But her eyes were bright, she also followed me around and when she lost sight (she can't see, but she senses the environment around her) of me for a while, she meowed loudly, almost desperately. I have interpreted that loud meow as a request of physical contact. I fear that she senses that her end is near and she would like me close to her as much as possible. She doesn't wat to stay alone, she fears to be alone. I don't know...

Meanwhile I am trying to hurt myself by reading all other stories in the Rainbow Bridge section of this forum, and I'm melting into tears constantly. At home or here at work. When I'm at work I have to hide because tears flow down, my colleagues wouldn't understand.

This might be an attempt to harden myself so that I'll be less vulnerable when it's my time to take the hardest decision, but I'm afraid it won't work.
I'm sleeping less and less every night, my mind goes out to all those moments we've been through in the last year since Lola was sick for the first time, I review every moment and relive every feeling, I still feel the effort I put in all I did for her, I still feel the pain and the desperation of the sad moments when all seemed lost and then again I feel the overwhelming joy of the weeks following the surgery in July when I felt like I had fought the whole world barehanded and I had won. Right now I feel like the whole world is treading on me.

I'm not sure I will be able to bear the pain that will crush my heart, in fact I know I will die with her. My life won't be the same anymore, the world won't mean anything anymore to me, I will live in a constant sadness and emptiness.

Antonino,

You will be able to live. Maybe it would be best to not read anymore posts from The Crossing the Bridge thread for a bit as I think they are

adding to your distress. Most of us have been where you are. Try to think of the times when Lola was not ill.

Hugs,

Mia

I dare to say something that confront common opinion and I can feel the flames of Hell when writing this: why not attempt a disperate surgery?

The cat will either survive in better status afterwards or she will not manage the procedure (but what is the difference from being putting to sleep in this second case?). 

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I have seen a vet receiving a dog, one leg very damaged after a car crash (or something). From the experience and from the books, the vet should have amputate the leg at once. He did not. He said he will attempt saving the dog's leg despite any evidence. He said that he will either successful - and then good for the dog or un-successful, but he will anyway obtain better results than just jumping on amputation (and will learn more to better perform the next similar surgery).. Does it really matter if the vet was successful or not?

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Try persuade yourself to think to something else when going to sleep (like a mental talking to yourself). I also second Mia6 above on less reading posts here.

The pain of the unknown and the leading up to something like this can often be more unbearable than the act itself. You HAVE to convince yourself that you don't want your little one to suffer. Don't do anything up to that time but love her. I would give years of my life to have ONE more day with my sweet little girl, I was robbed of that. She was supposed to live to a ripe old age, not be struck down in the height of her life because of something stupid I did. I will live with that forever.   Your little girl has fought a valient fight, she knows she is loved and she gave you her lifetime full of love. Just hold her tight while you can and tell her you are there, that is all she ever wanted. I will pray with all my heart that she goes quietly into the night in her sleep, you must be strong and go on with your life, because that is what she wants for you. Of course you will be devastated and sad. Losing her will be the saddest time in your life. But you must keep it in the past where it belongs, knowing she will never really be gone,because a love like yours will always be bound together by your souls.  Love is eternal and knowing that sweet girl is still a wonderful part of your life, it would have been tragic to have never meant her at all.   

Solomonar said:

 
I dare to say something that confront common opinion and I can feel the flames of Hell when writing this: why not attempt a disperate surgery?

The cat will either survive in better status afterwards or she will not manage the procedure (but what is the difference from being putting to sleep in this second case?).

Click to expand...

Had the surgery been possible they'd have did it in October, when the mass was smaller and well detailed. Now it's a monster with an unnatural shape. It's not invasive, Lola is still able to keep her mouth shut, but the doctors won't be able to understand where it begins and ends. Furthermore, this surgery won't give her tongue back and the necrosis is gaining day by day.

The surgery could have been an option in July, when this mass was tiny an easily removable, but nobody saw it. The cat underwent a CT scan before a heavy surgery and the doctors missed it. The admitted their mistake three months later when I asked them to review the scan on their computer.

I will never forgive them!

Mia6 said:

 
Antonino,

You will be able to live. Maybe it would be best to not read anymore posts from The Crossing the Bridge thread for a bit as I think they are

adding to your distress. Most of us have been where you are. Try to think of the times when Lola was not ill.

Hugs,

Mia

Click to expand...

I can't keep myself from reading those posts, because they let me understand that other people are like me, grieve as I will, are desperate as I am.

But I know they are adding to my pain.

I have just spoken to a friend who lost his dog 13 months ago, he was still crying when he talked of him. He fully understood my doubt and pain.

Di and Bob said:

 
The pain of the unknown and the leading up to something like this can often be more unbearable than the act itself. You HAVE to convince yourself that you don't want your little one to suffer. Don't do anything up to that time but love her. I would give years of my life to have ONE more day with my sweet little girl, I was robbed of that. She was supposed to live to a ripe old age, not be struck down in the height of her life because of something stupid I did. I will live with that forever.   Your little girl has fought a valient fight, she knows she is loved and she gave you her lifetime full of love. Just hold her tight while you can and tell her you are there, that is all she ever wanted. I will pray with all my heart that she goes quietly into the night in her sleep, you must be strong and go on with your life, because that is what she wants for you. Of course you will be devastated and sad. Losing her will be the saddest time in your life. But you must keep it in the past where it belongs, knowing she will never really be gone,because a love like yours will always be bound together by your souls.  Love is eternal and knowing that sweet girl is still a wonderful part of your life, it would have been tragic to have never meant her at all.   

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I would probably give my life so that Lola could survive. But I can't.

I am spending every single minute with her, I am at work now, but can't wait to go home to hold her tight, cuddle her, kiss her. I know I will never have enough time, though.

Talking to others, here on the real life, helps me a lot, especially when it is people who already have gone through the same dreadful moment of their life. Those who have never had such an experience cannot understand and their naive advices sound meaningless to me.

I was talking not about a common surgery, but about a disperate one. Which is not by the books.

Now you have a negative opinion on the vets who treated the cat - I wont challenge this opinion, as I am not in the position to judge. But from the very logical point of view, why not ask for a second opinion, to compare with the opinion of the vets you do not trust anyway?

....

Story (seen and true):

An old lady was terribly ill, at almost 80s her vertebres were seriously damaged. A surgery was possible, backbone could be repaired technically speaking. But the professor physician doing the consultation together with a younger colleague said he will not go for surgery, as he believed that the old lady will not survive anyway, given her old age. 

The daughter of the old lady was there in the consultation room, and she start crying for her mother will end in pain. But she understood the Nature. When heading to the exit, tears allover the place,  the young physician leading both of them said he will attempt the surgery, if the mother and the daughter truly believe in him. They both said they do believe in him, although he was so young and un-experienced. The surgery went very well and the old lady died years after (!) from some pulmonary disease, or something alike, as all old people use to die.  

Solomonar said:

 
I was talking not about a common surgery, but about a disperate one. Which is not by the books.

Now you have a negative opinion on the vets who treated the cat - I wont challenge this opinion, as I am not in the position to judge. But from the very logical point of view, why not ask for a second opinion, to compare with the opinion of the vets you do not trust anyway?

....

Story (seen and true):

An old lady was terribly ill, at almost 80s her vertebres were seriously damaged. A surgery was possible, backbone could be repaired technically speaking. But the professor physician doing the consultation together with a younger colleague said he will not go for surgery, as he believed that the old lady will not survive anyway, given her old age. 

The daughter of the old lady was there in the consultation room, and she start crying for her mother will end in pain. But she understood the Nature. When heading to the exit, tears allover the place,  the young physician leading both of them said he will attempt the surgery, if the mother and the daughter truly believe in him. They both said they do believe in him, although he was so young and un-experienced. The surgery went very well and the old lady died years after (!) from some pulmonary disease, or something alike, as all old people use to die.  

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Very interesting story.

But where should I find an alternative veterinarian who could perform a desperate surgery?

I did "desperate" things myself. I bought alternative medicines that should have helped Lola, but they didn't work. I had bought them because I had read of people who used them on themsleves for desperate cases and they were miraculously cured and healed.

To be totally honest, I don't think we have much time ahead and the search for a vet of that kind would take up all my short time that I am left to spend with her.

I do appreciate your non-conventional approach to this matter, because as you have clearly understood, I don't trust veterinarians anymore, but I think I am going to accept the situation as it is...

We have fought with all available weapons for all our life, we also used stones when the weapons were not available, but I think that now we've run out of stones too.

My other cat, one year younger than Lola, is being treated with acupunture for minor problems that she has. Tonight we'll have the fourth session out of five and as matter of fact I haven't seen many improvements so far. So, even alternative medicine can have its limits. And it's not a matter of believing it or not, I could believe it, my cat doesn't even know what's going on, but it doesn't seem to work.

I also believe in other forces and I summoned them too, to no avail.

Sometimes the Evil is just too evil.

There is no evil in Nature. We create evil. 

How to find a curageous vet? Have a look on the internet, make some calls. If you cant find time for this (and I fully agree time with the beloved values more than Earth in gold) why not ask a friend to do this for you?

Yesterday I talked to the vet, I told her that the mouth situation in really bad but that the cat is still enjoying most of his life, she walks around, follows me, looks for me, takes a walk in the garden, sniffs our food from the table, sometimes she purrs and kneads on me. She's still eating with the syringe. Her eyes are bright and alert, though she's blind.

The vet said that as long as she doesn't reject the food and has an average quality of life as described it's not time yet.

The vet told me also that my cat is showing an incredible and uncommon will to live and this has to be held in account, so she told me to wait and see if other negative signs will show. Mainly going off food and not getting up from her bed anymore. Those signs haven't shown so far, some bad days among several good days are acceptable, when she has no more good days for some time then I will understand.

Last night at 11 pm she sneaked out the door and went in the garden where she had a long walk and used the tree as a scratching post. She was enjoying it so much that I had some hard time to get her inside.

Say a 3 years old cat, in good shape and health,  is hit by a car and died. One day before she was happy, purring, eating.

Say in the wild a 5 years old cat, good health is catch by a coyote and is given as meal to the coyote's cubs. One day before she was happy, hunting, running.

Say one cat in the wild has kidney failure, being as old as one could be. One day before she was walking and enjoying sunshine.

Say one indoor cat is happy and enjoying her life, but she suddenly disappears.

What is the difference?

Sorry but I don't think I'm following you.

I am saying to enjoy the current day as much as possible, because nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. All humans and animals end someday and nobody knows when. In Nature, nobody knows, nobody decides. One can decide to think to his/her own end )or to the end of his/her beloved) every single day. But this is traumatic and may wipe away the joy of life.

From what I read it looks like you decided to leave the nature to follow his path and to call for vet final care only if the quality of life of your cats degrades dramatically. To that time, there are chances that the end will come naturally, without vet intervention.

This scenario does not differ in its fundamental structure to any of the ones I wrote in my previous post. Or, if you like, the only difference is the presence of a dear owner, which smooth the process for the cat.

So, enjoy the today time with Lola!   

Antonio,

Sounds like Lola is a fighter,,,,,,,,a a lot like my Kirsten.

Enjoy these precious days with her.

Hugs,

Mia

Solomonar said:

 
From what I read it looks like you decided to leave the nature to follow his path and to call for vet final care only if the quality of life of your cats degrades dramatically. To that time, there are chances that the end will come naturally, without vet intervention.

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Well, actually nothing has changed at all, because the call to the vet would have been done only when the situation was bad beyond recovery and it was what it seemed to me a few days ago. On Sunday and Monday she was feeling so sick that I thought she couldn't have recovered, but again she made through it and today she's feeling good.

There will be of course other bad days and probably other good days.

I still hope that everything will go according to the Nature's path, but I'm not so confident.

To me is a long desperate moment, because I've had to face the possible end so many times so far, a huge pain in my heart so many times. And everytime it wasn't so. It's a torture, believe me!

Mia6 said:

 
Antonio,

Sounds like Lola is a fighter,,,,,,,,a a lot like my Kirsten.

Enjoy these precious days with her.

Hugs,

Mia

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She IS a fighter, the doctors told me that several times, she really loves life as your Kirsten did.

Lola is a tortie shell, they say these cats have an attitude and a strength above the average. Can I ask you what color your Kirsten was?

Anonio,

Kirsten is the cat in my profile pic. She was all black. What does Lola look like?

Mai

I truly understand you. Ive seen similar situation before. 

This is Lola in a photo taken with my smartphone (excuse the poor quality) in August 2015, she was 15 years and 3 months old.

This is one of the last photo of her in good health. She started feeling bad two months later... she went up and down for five months until February 2016 when she started going constantly downhill due to a undiagnosed rare disease, the hyperaldosteronism. By the time the doctors found out what it was, in April, she was in poor conditions, she lost weight and has had a worn look since. She was operated in July 2016, she never regained her original weight, she never fully recovered, and when everything was going to look bright for us we found out the mouth cancer.

The grey spot in the center of her face is the result of the radiation therapy that she underwent in November 2011 to fight (and win) a cancer inside one of her nostrils.

In the picture she sits on one of the steps of a timber stair that I made for her because she has arthritis and couldn't jump to the window sill anymore. She still uses and loves it!

The white thing behind her is the radiator for home heating

Antonio,

Oh my, she is a beauty!!! Bella!! That is a great pic!

Hugs,

Mia