My cat had to be put to sleep last night. [View all]

[moriah]

Last edited Sun Feb 5, 2012, 11:09 PM - Edit history (1)

He was about a month shy of his 11th birthday.

He'd been off his dry food and was drooly, I thought he had a bad tooth, and was waiting for my income tax refund to take him to get his teeth sorted. I was feeding him wet food instead until it came in. Last night I went downstairs for a glass of juice - I've had a nasty stomach flu - and he was sitting in front of his untouched food like he wanted to eat but couldn't get the energy to do it. So I took him to the emergency vet.

It wasn't a bad tooth, or even a recurrence of calcivirus (he'd been exposed when he was a kitten and he's had a few mouth ulcers from it over the years).

He had a tumor in his mouth that the vet said started on one side and, since he'd only been showing symptoms for a little while, she believed it was cancerous. It had already spread into his jaw and under his tongue to the other side. Treatment would have required a specialist, radiation or chemotherapy if it was cancer, and regardless of if it was cancer or not, he would have had to have an artificial jaw placed, which most cats don't tolerate well and would have been difficult to fit to his smushed-up Himalayan face anyway.

He went to sleep purring.

I'm gonna miss my Ninja kitty more than I can say.