Some Serious Purring

Today I feel compelled to do a post on my sick kitty, Phantom. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that the majority of my posts involved kitties until Phantom decided to start his own blog (Here).

Phantom was diagnosed with liver cancer last June and heart disease last March. It has been a year since he first started showing signs of his illness and it has been a long, hard journey.  He has been to at least 4 local vets as we have moved from Birmingham, Alabama, to Pensacola Beach, Florida and finally to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area.

 He has also been to two different oncologist starting with Auburn University small animal clinic and finally Bluepearl in Tampa and Clearwater. All have been excellent and very supportive and I appreciate every one of them for taking care of Phantom even when there was very little hope and his prognosis was poor.

We've tried two different chemotherapy drugs as well as some holistic herbal things. These have prolonged his life and given him a great quality of life for several months. He was very, very sick last June, but until this past week he has been doing really good. Eating, playing, bullying the other cats, catching dragonflies, monitoring the food situation - just being normal Phantom.

He has been very brave throughout the journey with all the vet visits, blood work, medications, but now we may be nearing the end of the journey.

I still have hope, but the vets say there is nothing left to do. His liver is failing, if not already not working. He has had to have subcutaneous fluids given almost daily since Friday and I'm having to syringe feed him.

He is still being very brave, but his poor little body is so weak.

This blog post is for him. I am so very thankful he has been a part of our lives these past 9 years. He has been the best kitty for my son and me.  Phantom has missed the boy since he went away to college three years ago. Maybe this is his way of saying, "I've done my job for the boy, now I have to go."

Cadence will miss him too. He and Phantom have been together since they were both kittens. Cadence and our other cat, Ed seem to know that something is wrong. They haven't been eating much the past three days either.

I am still hoping and praying for a miracle, but now I don't think it's going to happen so I have to be prepared too.

We are just going to love Phantom and keep him comfortable until it's time for him to go.

He's beautiful and the best cat ever!

The Boy's Visit

This morning I got up early to drive the three hour round trip to get the Boy from college and bring him back to stay with us for the weekend. These visits seem to keep getting more and more rare as he would rather stay at school most of the time. I figured he must be running out of food and/or money and he knows we will feed him when he's with us. He did make sure we were taking him out to eat before he decided to visit us and I got him breakfast this morning on the way back. It really wasn't that difficult getting on the road early since the last few weeks I've been up with the cats watching the sun rise.

On the way back I asked the Boy if he was out of any toiletries are anything and he said no. We stopped at Walmart Marketplace anyway because he wanted something to drink, meaning soft drinks because he knows we don't buy them and keep them in the house. He wanted Dr. Pepper and ended up getting Walmart's version, Dr. Thunder.

 Just kind of scary if you ask me. Why Dr. Thunder? How does Dr. Pepper translate into the Walmart Dr. Thunder version.

While I was there I thought of the Murph and got him another 12 pack of his drink of choice. At least that is one of them. 

Since the Boy is always complaining about being hungry, the Murph planned ahead of time and put a plate of pasta and chicken parm in the fridge with the Boy's name on it, complete with heating instructions.

On the hour and 1/2 drive back to the beach, the Boy and I got to catch up on things. We talked about several things like....

1. The possibility that Phantom might have cancer and what to do next

2.  How the Boy liked his student assistance job (He likes it)

3. If his room mate was still eating the Boy's food (Not anymore)

4. Phantom

5. The importance of the Boy keeping a clean and sanitary apartment, especially bathroom

   (He thinks it's clean, but when I saw his bath room it was pretty gross)

6. What we were going to do about Phantom

7. There's no way Phantom has cancer (says the Boy)

8. The fact that Phantom's bedroom is where the Boy sleeps and there's cat hair all over the bed, but I didn't think the Boy would mind since it's still a cleaner room than what he's been living in for the past several months because he refuses to do what I say and CLEAN his apartment! (He thought I was joking about that part (because he knows I usually clean everything for him) until he saw the cat hair)

9. The possibility that Phantom might have cancer and what to do next

As you can tell, we talked about Phantom ALOT. I did hear from the vet yesterday and had another call today and we are still unsure what is causing the high calcium levels in Phantom's blood. His thyroid is good. We've ruled out pretty much everything but cancer. The vet called some specialists at Auburn University and Michigan State to try to find out if they had blood test to detect cancer in cats. Michigan State has one and so now I just have to arrange for Phantom to get blood taken and shipped to them to be tested. He's also going to get another physical to check his mouth and glands in his neck since he keeps licking his lips and his breath smells really bad. 

Now I just have to decide if I should wait 2 weeks until we get back to Birmingham for the tests or take him to a new vet in Gulf Breeze next week. I'm thinking I should go ahead and take him next week and try to coordinate all the tests with my Birmingham vet and the new Gulf Breeze vet that a friend recommended.

Today Phantom's doing much better. He seems to love having the Boy back. Sometimes I wonder if he's just depressed when he seems to be feeling really bad. It's hard to tell with a cat! We know he's sick though because he does have heart disease and something causing this high calcium in his blood.

 It was a good day. I love having the Boy visit and we now have more options on what to do with Phantom instead of  "just wait and see." Phantom has been such a great pet for the Boy. I plan to do everything I can to help him get better if that is possible.

Another awesome sunset this evening!