i didn’t want to muddy the waters in my last post, but there’s more life trauma to relate to you.
as briefly mentioned a previous post, my cat, Rose Tyler, “almost died“. i admit, i took liberties with hyperbole and she wasn’t exactly on death’s door, but she did have a fluid-filled cyst surrounding her left kidney which, if left unchecked, would have, at the very least, destroyed said kidney, if not her.
this led to my my beautiful, sweet 12-year-old kitten to have surgery to remove the cyst, which, over the course of two weeks, had been drained and refilled with a clear, low-cellular fluid. the hope was, once the cyst around her kidney (i think of it like those balloons you get at Disneyland which has the coloured Mickey balloon inside a clear balloon) was removed, any fluid produced would be absorbed by the tissues in her abdomen without the direct, crushing risk to the kidney itself.
surgery happened. my poor girl had a 5-inch long incision and had to wear a compression onesie and get pain meds twice a day for two weeks. at a six-week checkup, everything looked great. she was slim and trim and feeling good. that was early November.
about two weeks ago now, i noticed that she was looking a little round around the middle. at first, i figured it was from all the extra eating she’d been doing (her appetite had been on fire post-op – yay!). again, i chalked that up to her just feeling better overall without this water balloon growing in her body. last week, though, i was giving her cuddles and kind of palpated her belly and it was very firm and very round and she seemed uncomfortable when i gave it a little extra poke or prod, so i called the vet to get her checked out.
unfortunately, our regular vet (who is the owner of the clinic) is off on a six-week trip of a lifetime and isn’t due back until next week. after everything i went through with Amy Pond’s health issues last year, i didn’t want to wait the two or possibly three weeks to get her seen, so i just got her in as soon as i could.
a very unhappy cat in a box, an x-ray and quick ultrasound later, it was confirmed that her abdomen is filling with fluids. well, fuck.
they took a little fluid out and sent it off for analysis. again, it’s that low-cellular fluid which indicates it’s being produced by the remaining cysts in her kidney.
oh, her bloodwork also shows she’s hyperthryoid. and, she has a heart murmur.
of emotional note, from the day i took Amy to the vet for her similarly fluid-filled abdomen (but, from cancer, not kidney), it was less than a month to when she died after an aggressive abnominocentesis at the vet’s office. it’s fair to say this news/diagnosis has started a bit of a countdown in my head about Rose’s longevity.
honestly, i wish they’d removed the funky kidney when they already had her on the operating table. with the heart murmur and her age any surgery is risky – two big ones in a few months probably isn’t all that great for her. the other option is to do regular fluid taps (at $800 each), but Rose is severely stressed out by car rides & vet visits, which, again, can’t be good for her heart and general well-being.
all currently available options are either too traumatic or too expensive.
our regular vet returns next week and we’re already booked into see her on tuesday. we’ll discuss options with her directly and then try to figure out a way through this.
in the meantime, other than getting more pot-bellied everyday, she seems to be in good enough spirits when Penguin isn’t harassing her. she’s still loving me and letting me love her back, which is all i can hope for.
i’m just so fucking scared of having to make a heartbreaking decision so soon after Amy and mom and everything else this fucking year has tried to crush me with.
i love you, rosecat.