angus
In may of 2009, a routine trip to the humane society delivered not one, but two balls of fluffy kitten cuteness to our home. Angus and Reggie were, from the outset, difficult. I’ll never forget the moment when the vet technician at the OHS handed me their crate and said “These ones will be a challenge – your work is cut out for you!”
If only we knew.
For weeks on end, Reggie thrived – first to leave his crate, first to climp up on top of his new foster parents, first to leave the bathroom where we keep all of our new charges, first to tumble down the stairs (safely, of course!), while Angus lingered, terrified, underneath our claw-foot tub. He shook when we approached him. He trembled when we forced him to sit in our laps to be loved, just a little bit. Every day, we decided, we would give him a new challenge. Sometimes, it was as simple as coming out from under the bathtub all by himself. Other times it was sitting in our lap, or eating food off our fingers, or putting his little feet, one after another, onto the hallway carpeting.
Before long, we had triumphed. No longer afraid of us, Angus could be found waiting at the door when we came home, jumping on the bed in the middle of the night, and keeping tabs on his new ‘people’ everywhere we went.
He and Reggie were inseparable, adorable, and best friends.
And then we noticed that he was sick.
It started with him just being finicky. Having had kittens for so long, it was no surprise that sometimes they just got tired of the VERY NICE food we always stocked for them and wanted something different. Reggie danced for food, it made him just SO happy. But Angus was a different story.
He didn’t like his food anymore, and gradually we started to notice that there were lumps under his arms. Red, ugly, and painful-looking, the lumps were hard to ignore. Working with the great vets at the OHS, we made a plan – the lumps would be removed and analyzed when Angus was neutered. He was already knocked out for the surgery, so it was less traumatic for him, and more affordable for them. Until he woke up, that is.
Let’s just say that he was not that impressed with his new sweater, or the case of the missing Reggie, who had gone to be adopted and would never return. To this day he still sits at the top of the stairs and calls for Reggie when he thinks we’re not paying attention. And he is desperately trying to befriend our local centretown cats and squirrels through the kitchen windows – we can tell.
Very briefly, Angus improved after his surgery and some preliminary doses of prednisone, a steroid, and antibiotics. And then he got worse. And then improved, and then got worse. The lumps spread to his feet, which resulted in weeks of hateful bandages (for the bandager, and the bandagee!) and even more hateful welts on his paws. We changed his food, we put him on a cocktail of meds, and still, nothing. He continued to get worse.
But he was happy. He loved to play. He loved to spend time snuggled up under our legs, or sitting in windows watching the traffic go by, or lounging in the sun. We weren’t fixing the problem with the current meds, but he was leading a pretty good life while we tried to figure it out.
In late September, his feet got worse. By the end of the month, the humane society told us that they were recommending that Angus be euthanized.
At that point, we made what was for us, an easy choice. In an instant, we were thrown from “I hope we can fix him so he can find a family” to “If we can’t be his new family, he will die”.
In the same breath that they told us they would recommend he be euthanized, they offered hope – “…unless you want to adopt him.” When they told me to have my vet call their vet about some ideas, Angus’ fate was sealed. How could we let him die when clearly, no one seemed to feel that he necessarily should?
In October, Angus might have been doomed. Today, he is thriving. Proper treatment for his long term diagnosis (collagenolytic eosinophilic granuloma complex means that he’s been weaned off prednisone, and instead is getting occasional Depomedrol injections (June 2010: once every 3+ months!) and a daily dose of Cyclosporine (update June 2010: now only once every four days!).
His feet are 100% better and the lumps are all gone. And he’s happy. And running. And playing. And loved. And if we didn’t tell you he was sick, you would probably never know it. But we know it. And we know he will never be cured – just better. And worse again. And better. But not in pain.
And if that’s the price we have to pay, we will. So that he can have his daily food bowl collection of toys. So that he can drool over our morning yogurt (but not have any). So that he can lead a long and happy life for as long as that might be. So that he is not dead without a very good reason (and he hasn’t been able to come up with a good reason yet).
We did tell him, though, that he needed to start paying rent. Get on it, kitty.
Afterword:
The downside, of course, of Angus and his little dilemma, is that his treatment means his immune system is vulnerable.
Which means, no more foster cats.
So the humane society simultaneously talked me into a cat, and out of so many more, in the same breath. The end of fostering after more than five years of baby cats breaks my heart more than a little but.
While for us, this decision was practically a no-brainer, a momentary adjustment of our finances (goodbye discretionary income, hello vet bills), and the briefest of consultations with a fabulous new vet who in no uncertain terms told us that he would live a long and happy life if we could treat him correctly, I know that somewhere out there, this decisions is so much bigger for someone else, who doesn’t have access to the same resources and support.
I am putting this out here because somewhere out there, someone else, just like me, is sitting in their living room simultaneously weeping for their cat who might die and googling the heck out of weird and random feline diseases trying to decide if SAVING THAT ANIMAL, if keeping him alive is the right decision. If saving that animal is something they can afford. Or if saving that animal will give that animal a promising future. And I hope they find this, and it helps, somehow, to know that someone else was faced with this decision. And made it. My first bit of advice to them would be: find a great vet who specializes in your cat’s illness. Not just a good one. GREAT. Angus wouldn’t have stood a chance without a fantastic doctor who specialized in feline allergies and skin conditions, and even now, living in a different city, she is still the person that we turn to to figure out what his next step is.