Points on Pets

It wasn’t all that long ago that I was writing an article for this very column. It was a piece about pet adoption featuring stories about how our two cats joined our family. As I sent it off, I hoped it captured some of the love and joy that pets can bring. Between the time I wrote the article and when it ran, our world had shifted dramatically.

It was an otherwise unremarkable day in May when my husband noticed some swelling in Smoky Tiggs Burns’s neck. After checking to make sure that it wasn’t something normal (we later thanked Sweet Potato Bailey Burns for serving as the “control group kitty”), we called the vet. She saw us that day. After examining our sweet grey girl, she uttered the words we all hope we’ll never hear from a doctor, whether they’re caring for a beloved person or a pet: “it’s cancer.”

The next week was a whirlwind. Smoky deteriorated quickly. She needed her lungs drained. Twice. Just seeing her shaved coat was enough to start our tears. The initial test confirmed cancer, but we had to wait a few days for the details. Was it bad, or was it worse?

It was worse. Large cell lymphoma, especially when it affects the T-cells, can be rapidly fatal for cats. It can kill in a matter of days. I remember telling the vet who’d diagnosed Smoky that we’d made an appointment to see a feline oncologist. Our appointment was less than a week away, which seemed pretty fast for such specialized care. She told us to get in sooner.

In some ways, we were quite lucky. We were able to make decisions based more on our hearts than on our wallets. We knew from the start that we could only prolong the inevitable. It would be months, not the years we’d hoped to have. (We’d had her for almost 7 years and think she was 11 or 12 years old.) We saw several vets, probably about a dozen appointments in all, and even on the best of days they’d remind us that the outcome wasn’t in doubt. We’d lose her.

We were able to prolong her life for several months. And they were good months, both for Smoky and for us. The treatments made her tired, but chemo isn’t as hard on cats is it is on people. She never seemed to be in