Borrowed Time

If you’ve read last month’s column, you’ll recall that 12 year old cat Junebug was in dire straits. There was an extreme and inexplicable weight loss, and a lack of interest in food that completely ran counter to her life-long kibble hobby. It seemed as though she went from fat to emaciated overnight. The vet had no answers, and neither did the blood tests. They only told us what wasn’t wrong, and gave no indication of what the problem actually was. Determining the exact nature of her illness became an exercise in the process of elimination.

We managed to level off her symptoms somewhat with the administration of fluids, but that proved to be a temporary measure. When it became obvious that the fluids alone weren’t going to fix the problem, there was an urgency to my phone calls to her doctor, and many questions were asked. The doctor felt that an expensive blood test would be the logical next step, and perhaps an ultrasound after that.

The expensive blood test would tell us whether Junebug’s pancreas and bowels were behaving themselves, and I was certain (in that naive way that people who have no clue tend to be) that we would finally know what had caused her alarming weight loss. Somehow, I managed to talk the frugal hubs into paying for it, and the doctor got the go-ahead to draw blood.

I’m not a religious person. Spiritual, yes. But the idea of a deity who does nothing more than listen to people beg for things all day long, and throw some occasional bones their way, just seems ridiculous to me. That’s never stopped me from hedging my bets, though, and you can believe me when I say that I’ve sent hundreds of prayers to all deities known and unknown:

Please let me keep her for a while, yet! Please don’t take her from me!

Around the time of the expensive blood test, I made the request that I be allowed to continue giving Junebug doses of appetite stimulant. Initially, it had increased her interest in food. Unfortunately, she’d ultimately thrown the stuff up twice. The vet gave me some anti-nausea pills for her, and this I did faithfully, two days in a row. But it soon became apparent that the pills were doing more harm than good: suddenly, Junebug stopped eating altogether, turning her nose up at every single treat I offered.

This was disastrous: she’d lost too much weight as it was, losing any more could literally kill her. Panic set in. I’d been giving Junebug  occasional infusions of lactated ringer’s solution, which is basically water doctored-up with additives such as electrolytes. Now, though, I was giving her more of it every day, and I was running out of it as a consequence. And who knew that you need a doctor’s prescription in order to buy the stuff online?

The problem was that buying the bags from the vet’s office cost an appalling amount of money, while the online company I looked at charged a fifth of the vet’s price. The vet herself didn’t have any problem with me buying those bags of fluid elsewhere, and so was agreeable to writing a prescription for them.

I decided to stop the anti-nausea pills, whilst at the same time, in discussions with the vet about the expensive blood test results, the subject of steroids came up. The expensive blood test turned out to show frustratingly little. Her pancreas was having a mite of trouble; the same for her bowels. But nothing definitive was found that the vet could point to and say; “This is the problem.” Meanwhile, the doctor mentioned offhandedly that a course of steroids might be beneficial because of the fact that Junebug’s pancreas was having that wee bit of difficulty doing its job. Something clicked in my brain, then, something from a long time ago.

The thing I remembered was that steroids could not only be beneficial for a malfunctioning pancreas, but they can also stimulate the appetite. And while a protracted course of steroid treatment generally isn’t advisable, at Junebug’s advanced age, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she simply remained on them for the rest of her life. I suggested to the vet that steroids might be a good next step, before we consider any other expensive tests. She agreed.

I gave Junebug the first pill the same day that the hubs and I were going away overnight, to celebrate our anniversary. I didn’t know whether those steroids would actually help her. I could only administer more fluids before we left, then wait, hope, and pray yet again,

Please let me keep her for a while, yet! Please don’t take her from me!

Indeed, I tried to prepare myself for the very real possibility that I would come home and find her dead.

When we returned from our brief holiday, I raced through the house, barely noticing the other cats, until I came to the bedroom. No Junebug. Please, no! Not yet! Then I checked the office, and – thankyouthankyyouthankyou to every deity who saw fit to grant my request – there she was! Lying on that overstuffed chair the hubs detests and that I refuse to get rid of, head up, alert, and offering up a meow was My Little Mitten, looking far better than she has done in quite some time. I offered her some wet food and she licked it right up. Maybe deities do exist.

It’s worth noting that in spite of her illness – or perhaps because of it – Junebug has become far more affectionate than she’s ever been, and she was always an affectionate cat. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, she’ll climb up onto my belly and settle in for a cuddle. Or, if I’m lying on my side, she’ll perch on my rib cage, her front paws draped over my shoulder, and the purring going directly into my ear. Sometimes, she’ll cuddle up under the blankets with me. Whichever way she chooses to express herself, it’s incredibly endearing, and I treasure every instance.

We still have no idea what caused her dramatic weight loss, and we have no idea how long this current reprieve will last. In my experience, those reprieves are usually very limited. Twelve years went by in a flash, and, so, regrettably, will our current borrowed time.