Well, hell

I got a call from the emergency vet just before lunchtime, with the verdict. They were able to do an ultrasound on Polly as well as get a sterile urine sample out of her, and they tell me that they've found a mass on her bladder. Because of the way it's situated, it would be difficult to remove via surgery; the best they could accomplish doing that would be a reduction of the bulk of the mass. It's growing in such a way right now so as to not fully obstruct her ability to urinate, but long-term, it would likely spread into more of her body and eventually interfere with her bodily functions anyway.

It would be possible to treat it with anti-inflammatories, but from what the vet was telling me, that'd maybe get us a few more months. She wouldn't commit to a solid estimate based on the fact that they hadn't identified the exact nature of the mass, but definitely confirmed that regardless, trying to treat it via medication would simply be prolonging the inevitable.

Because of this I have decided that since I can't afford a major surgical procedure for the cat right now, that this basically makes my choices "deal with this now" or "deal with this in the near future".

So we're dealing with this now. The vet says it would be more merciful to go ahead and deal with it while they have her rather than making her come home and have to be handled by yet another person, so solarbird, risu, spazzkat, and I are going over to the place this afternoon to be with her as they do this.

Hell.

RIP Polly 1990-2007

That sucked about as hard as I was expecting, yeah.

A small part of me feels like it was too swift, too brutal a decision. The rest of me points out that Polly was in increasing distress and that prolonging it would probably have only made things worse. That as a kitty of the ripe old age of 17, we were going to be lucky to get a few more years out of her anyway. That since I couldn't do what I really wanted to do and fix the problem, the next best thing I was going to be able to manage would be to give her some peace.

The four of us went over to the center and were with her in her final moments. I held her and we all petted her. She was a fighter to the end.

This post is in her honor.

( A lot of memories of Polly... )

( More memories of Polly... )

Pictures of Polly are now posted here.

solarbird has a couple of pictures and some video snippets here.

ETA 1/27/07 11:26am: spazzkat has thoughts on Polly here. And I've added more memories to the list.

ETA 1/28/07 9:13pm: More Polly memories added.

ETA 1/29/07 10:47am: Polly's previous owner chimes in with some memories of his own and corrections to her background. Thanks, Pierre. Much appreciated.

She was a good cat. We loved her and will miss her.

Sleep well, kitty.