Feel so lost

[Weeclaire1984]

So the last 4 weeks we have been taking our cat chitty to the vet, it was like he was fine one day then not the next he couldn't jump up on the counter anymore we immediately thought with him being 15 it was his joints , he got treated for inflammation with metacalm to go back to the vets a week later for a check up but he started to go off his food we put this down to the medicine but when his weight was checked he had went from 4.1kg down to 3.8kg so full blood works were completed and he got confirmed with hyperthyroidism and started him on medicine straight away and appetite stimulation 
He continued to go back and forth over the next few weeks checking bloods but his weight kept dropping bloods kept coming back as ok for thyroid , kidney , anemia etc so we arranged for a specialist to come out and do an ultrasound and as soon as we heard the results me and my husband knew it was not good news our poor baby had a growth in his bowel and had spread into his liver and stomach and his lungs were full of fluid options were steroids which could have kept him going for a few weeks , chemotherapy which there was a slim chance of making an improvement or to put him to sleep. He was our first pet together when we met 15 years ago and we wanted to do what was best for chitty so we made the heartbreaking decision to put him to sleep and end his suffering. We both feel at peace as we said from the beginning if he was suffering and we couldn't make him better it was the best option for him. 

Now I have things playing on my mind like could he have had this for a long time and we didn't notice any symptoms and that he suffered for months and months , but even thinking back over this year he has been happy and social with us like he always was , playing with toys coming to bed at night and cuddling in up until the day he wasn't himself since that day it was like our wee cat was gone and we tried so so hard to get him back we just wanted to make him feel better and everything we tried just seemed to fail.

Has anyone else had experience with this can a cat just suddenly get cancer like this as we had chitty at the vets only 3 weeks before all this happened for his 6 monthly check up and he got a clean bill of health. 

We also have another cat we rescued when she was 3 as a friend for chitty and I don't know if she's ok after the loss of her buddy , she has been eating ok as normal maybe looking for more attention but I think she sometimes looks sad or as if she's looking for chitty , we haven't moved any of chitty cats beds as yet as we didn't want to distress our other cat by even more change , keeping her in routine with feeding and play she's 17 years old I'm just a little worried she might get lonely or sick because she misses chitty so much not sure if a visit to the vet would help put my mind at ease but don't want to stress her out either 

I am so sorry for the long post just miss my boy so much 

R.I.P Chitty Cat (Aug 2002 - 24th July 2017)

[MarvaMac]

What a beautiful fur baby angel!!!! Please let me say how sorry I am for your loss....trust and believe I know what you guys are going through!!! Our Rex was 16 when we put him down peacefully on June 22, 2017 and he had the same symptoms as your beautiful baby had, but know this my friend.....we have no knowledge or control on what or how our babies have suffered, just know you guys have done the best as you could've done to love and provide for your baby....such a true blessing you guys were as well!!!! Kudos to you both!!!!!!! You are free to post whatever you want to post about your cat son, no matter how long !!! I feel exactly what you feel, please pray and cry whenever you feel like to make your heart and day a little better. Just know you are not alone when it comes to grieving your boy, I miss my boy too.....I will be praying you guys, please take care!!!!

[Weeclaire1984]

Hi MarvaMac , thank you so so much for your kind message and so sorry to hear about your loss it is so heartbreaking my parents always had dogs when I was growing up so I have felt loss before but with chitty cat it felt different maybe because he was my first pet as an adult , me and my husband managed to speak about some of the happier times we had with him this morning like when he used to try walk along the bath and fall in and look at us as if it was our fault he got wet made us laugh , just hard to forget about the last 4 weeks watching him get weaker and weaker 

we are collecting his ashes next week I think this may help as we will feel like he is back home 

 

thanks again for your kind words it has helped just speaking about him 

 

big hugs 

[KayC]

I am so sorry for the loss of your cat.  You ask if they can get cancer rapidly, they can, or it can be slow growing, but if he had a clean bill of health a few months prior, I don't think it was because of anything you did or failed to do.  I had a cat 19 years old I had to put to sleep because of cancer and his immense suffering, but he was misdiagnosed at first, I would have had him put to sleep sooner had I known sooner, he suffered a lot.  

It's easy to beat ourselves up but that doesn't help, the truth is, we did our best by our cats, we love them and don't want them to suffer.  Guilt is a common response in grief, almost as if we're trying to rewrite the ending, but we can't, all we can do is let go of the guilt as it's neither earned or deserved.

I hope these articles are of help to you as they have been to me and many others.
http://media.wix.com/ugd/0dd4a5_e934e7f92d104d31bcb334d6c6d63974.pdf 

http://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml

[Weeclaire1984]

Hi KayC 

thank you so much for your kind words and response

so sorry to hear about your cat also , it's so hard to watch them struggle and they can't tell us what's wrong and making that decision to end the suffering has got to be the hardest thing I've ever done even though you know it's the best thing you can do for your cat 

the articles are very helpful a lot of information on there .

hugs