Sad news

Liftoff Cat died sometime early this morning. I found her on the couch between two cardboard boxes - we started putting the boxes on the couch during the night because she liked to pee on the couch. Eventually, when we turned them on their side, they became fun sleeping places for her.

The last few days however, she had been sleeping on the back of the couch. At about 3:30am I woke up and found her sleeping on the back of the couch and moved her over to her food. I gave her some cat food and she started eating, so I petted her and went back to bed. Apparently sometime afterward she had moved to get back up on the back of the couch and either slipped or slid off, fell between two of the boxes onto the cushion, and died.

I woke Liftoff Guy at 6am when I found her. I was in shock. He gathered her up in a towel and we put her in a cardboard box along with a jade ankh necklace of mine (when Liftoff Cat's "sister" cat died, I buried her with a jade scarab ring I really liked. My cats get buried with Egyptian symbols because the ancient Egyptians respected cats), a piece of the other cat's fur, her crinkly frog toy, her brush and a can of salmon Fancy Feast. We're going to go out and find her a proper "coffin" this morning - her "sister" was buried in an awesome hat box that looked like an old fashioned suitcase. I'm sure we'll find something suitable for this girl.

I've been crying off and on all morning, grieving but also relieved that she died on her own, at home, and that we didn't have to go through the excruciating process of deciding to have her euthanized. The vet was still hopeful and Liftoff Cat was eating really well yesterday, even though she was clearly tired and having trouble catching her breath.

What it comes down to is that her lymphoma was in remission for almost a year. It returned apparently in late April and she began to vomit fairly frequently. We gave her anti-nausea meds, but by May 11th or so she had begun to lose weight and an exam showed her cancer was back, really strongly. Her vet (who has been wonderful) decided that we could try her on a "rescue" form of chemo. She had been on Leukeran, which worked well until it didn't anymore, and now we were going to try Ceenu. The problem with Ceenu is that it causes anemia, but LC's red blood cells were close enough to normal despite the Leukeran that we thought she could handle it. It was 27 when we started the chemo, 17 a week later, and 14 1/2 a week after that. But her white blood cells were up and the vet thought this was a good indication that her marrow was kicking back in after being suppressed by the same mechanisms that suppress the cancer. On the good side, the cancer was responding really well. On the bad side, as of yesterday she was still having a hard time breathing and occasionally wheezing. We had made up our minds to get her an injection of erythropoetin this Thursday to encourage red blood cell production if her count was still low. Of course, now we'll never know.

We think it was either her heart giving out (anemia in cats can weaken the heart and she wasn't young), or she fell or something and couldn't catch her breath. This is going to be a source of pain for a while, but she died here, on her couch, after a lovely day spent outside with plenty of food and petting, and now she's wherever she is. I just wish she could have met Liftoff Boy.