Monday Bitey went for his MRI in Orange County. Boyfriend and I picked him up at the local vet's around 7:30am. He was in better spirits, having solved his "excretory issues" the night before, with a "helping hand" from both the on-call vet and her lab tech.
(How different is your life when the best news of the day comes from a kind vet tech, calling you at 7pm on a Sunday to tell you that your sick cat has pooped prodigiously?)
End TMI ALERT
So Boyfriend, (I'd call him Comedy Guy but I worry the Sports Guy might litigate) took Bitey to Orange County ahead of a massive rainstorm.
I went to work.
Several hours later we got the results. Boyfriend called from the doctor's office, and the phone on speaker. This is what I heard.
...arge mass...inside spinal...umn but...side...
So that didn't work too well.
Later I got the translation. Bitey has a large mass inside his spinal column but outside of his spinal cord. The mass is putting pressure on the cord, creating the paralysis. The mass was consistent with feline lymphoma, although they still didn't know for sure.
Bitey, sacked out from the anethesia, went back to the vet. He lay on the cold metal table oblivious as our family vet tried to gently gauge our readiness for Bitey's further decline. Then I carried him back to his cage, stroked his fur, and left.
Here's a picture I took Monday night, taken on my cell phone. Bitey is resting his head on a small stuffed chicken. He likes it because it's at just the right angle for his head.---------------
Tuesday's first piece of information was that Bitey was negative for toxoplasmosis. You think?
Later I got a call from the kitty neurologist. She gave me the first really detailed set of options. Here they are in order of, well...
1) We could put Bitey to sleep. Every vet I talked to has told me that no one would think poorly of me if I did that...he's in that bad shape. More on that later.
2) We could treat Bitey with a steroid and a "wonder drug", the names of which I keep forgetting. It's the simplest option. Combined, these drugs are supposed to reduce lymphoma. You find out in a couple of days whether it's working or not.
3) We could embark on a full course of chemotherapy and radiation with a kitty oncologist. Kitty chemo is not as bad as human chemo. The dosages are less. It's still not easy. Lymphoma apparently responds well to chemo.
4) Then, there is the surgical option. The kitty neurologist would open Bitey up and do her best to relieve the compression on his spinal cord by cutting as much of the tumor out as she could. If Bitey made it through the surgery without complications, he would spend 3-7 days in the hospital and then need several weeks of recovery, and possibly chemo and radiation post-surgery.
And finally, the worst news. Whichever option we choose, it is very likely that Bitey will not live longer than four more months.
After all this news, I left work. I took Bitey's films over to the West LA Surgical Center for a second opinion. All the way west and all the way back east on Santa Monica Blvd, I thought about the four choices. I worked myself up into a pretty good state. I hadn't planned on visiting Bitey until later, but my car took the right turn automatically.
The moment I turned the corner into the hospital section Bitey started meowing. I opened the cage door and sat down on the floor. Bitey looked so much more alert than the night before. Own his own accord, he stood up, bearing his weight on his two front paws. He hasn't done that since last Friday. He started eating the food, as if to show me he still had an appetite. Then he dragged his useless back half out of the cage and onto my lap. This was a deliberate show of strength. For good measure, he peed all over my jeans. What a cat.
We sat for a while, both watching as a large black and white dog was put under anesthesia. We listened to the whimpers of the small terrier in the cage above, who fell out of the window of a moving car. We sized up the French Connection; three sad-eyed cats named Cleo, Shaquil, and Paris. And then I left, to think.
Which treatment do we choose? Which one is the most likely to give us the most time with the least discomfort? These are tonight's questions.
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