Faith and Midnight

We never expected to wind up with two cats with cancer.

We're grateful to everyone's whose prayed, thought good thoughts, and sent out healing energy their way.

Today's blog seems the best way to update everyone, since both cats had some medical stuff these past few weeks.

Yes, they are both alive and stable. It's not that kind of update.

Midnight

Midnight came to us at four months of age. Someone had thrown Midnight away along with her siblings. Christopher discovered them, rescued them, cared for them, and found homes for all except Midnight because she was "skittish" and no one wanted her.

So I named her Midnight and picked her up from his house when she was sixteen weeks (that's the short story).

Well, Midnight was skittish because she was sick, underweight, and fighting amongst the bigger cats at Christopher's house for her food. She had ear mites and tape worms, and I didn't expect her to live.

Our veterinarian would not spay her until she was free of heartworm segments. For months, Midnight had regular deworming treatments and we regularly submitted stool samples for testing. Midnight could not be spayed until she was tapeworm-free.

Well, one night she was nine months old and the temperature was eighteen degrees below zero, Midnight dashed out of the house at one in the morning as we were leaving to deliver newspapers. We circled back several times, calling out, "Midnight" all around the yard in the middle of the night.

Around four in the morning, Midnight crawled out from under the deck with three cats and she was not cold at all. I'm sure you know where this story is going.

Ron wouldn't hear of breaking up the family. He named the kittens Faith, Hope, and Charity, and we now had five cats instead of just our rescue cat Frances.

Charity used all all nine lives in three years.

Hope died in July two days before my birthday.

Fast forward to the last couple of years: Midnight's had three surgeries in two years to remove aggressive spindle cell sarcoma tumors from her back. Each time, they've regrown more quickly than the last. She'd barely recovered from the last surgery when the growths reappeared. They grow larger every day. I now call them "Tina Tumors."

The insidiousness of spindle cell sarcomas is that the part you see is not the evil part. These sarcomas finger out and and out, typically with the lungs as their destination.

After consulting with Midnight's primary, oncologist, and surgeon, we learned that, even at eighteen, Midnight is a great candidate for additional surgery. All her bloodwork is perfect. She does have a grade one heart murmur that isn't always detectable. The heart murmur is not a barrier to more surgery.

However.

The next surgery would need extremely wide margins with the goal of removing all the tumors, going into muscle and part of her spine. She would need radiation five days a week and spend most of her days for eight weeks waiting in a cage for those treatments.

None of this will cure her, although it may buy her time. But what kind of time?

Midnight is terrified of all of it and she was shaking hard when Timothy had to leave her for her CT scan.

Oh, and she also has feline gastrointestinal eosinophilic sclerosing fibroplasia with two lymph nodes involvements.

Midnight can't decide for herself, so we decided for her.

We decided no more surgery for Midnight unless one of her tumors rupture or become necrotic. The surgeon said he could still remove the affected section should it happen as a palliative care option.

The heartbreaking part is that Midnight, at eighteen and dealing with all of this, is still Midnight in personality and activity level. And she may still be her regular Midnight self when it comes time for euthanasia if the reason for euthanasia is this cancer.

The good news is that these tumors have not traveled to her lungs so far. They do seem located despite their rapid growths. Both Midnight's primary and her surgeon feel confident she may die from something else.

So Midnight has joined her daughter Faith in palliative care.

Faith

Faith, as you know, was diagnosed with small cell lymphoma in early April 2022. After much soul searching and multiple opinions, we chose palliative care (for many reasons), which her oncologist said would buy her two to three months.

Chemotherapy treatment, if Faith responded to it, could have theoretically bought her two to three years. 

Well, Faith has lived two and half on palliative alone. At the time of this writing, she is sitting next to me on my desk chair, chin on my arm, and meowing at me when I look at her.

But.

Faith is slowly losing weight.

She needs her anti-nausea medicine daily now - and has Zofran as a backup should she vomit or start eating and drinking less again. Fortunately, we haven't needed it yet.

She was treated for dehydration again a couple of weeks ago.

She is hiding more.

And she looks like an older cat.

Well, Faith is now an older cat.

Faith is a sixteen-year-old cat with cancer.

Some days, she just looks tired, like a clock that's winding down.

She does not look tired now. In this moment, she's now standing on the arm of my chair, nuzzling me for attention.

She tends to look down or away from the camera when I point it at her. Just six months ago, she was such a ham for the camera.

As sad as we'll be when the time to say goodbye arrives, we are so thankful.

We could have lost Midnight all those years ago when she was just a sick little kitten.

We could have only gotten two or three months with Faith after her diagnosis.

And we also almost euthanized Faith eleven months ago. We never dreamed she'd still be with us.

Last November she'd stopped eating and drinking. She was assessed by her primary and a doctor who euthanizes in the home. No one found a reason for Faith's decline. Her bloodwork was good. Her heart and lungs were normal. She had no palpable masses.

So Faith received a modified care plan and had two days to respond. Otherwise, humane euthanasia on the third day was recommended. Daniel was out of town for business for a couple of weeks at the time, and we did a "goodbye" video visit with him, since he and Faith are close.

One hour before Faith's scheduled euthanasia, she jumped off the bed and ran to her food bowl. I took a video and sent it to the doctor. She canceled the euthanasia.

Then we scheduled another euthanasia appointment for two days later, a Saturday, with her primary, just in case. If Faith declined again, we didn't want to drive her an hour away, with her suffering, just to end it all.

We canceled that one, too.

Later that Saturday, Faith left the ugliest, largest hair ball by her food ball I ever saw. That likely caused a blockage that could have killed her. Seriously, this thing was as wide as a sausage and half as long, with long spiky hair sticking out of it.

YUCK!

So now our daily routine looks like we're running an animal hospital, with medication rounds twice a day for both cats and regular weigh-ins. Midnight is taking two, Faith is taking three, and both have additional "as needed" medications, too.

So that's the "tail end" of our update. 

We are thankful.

We are grateful.

We are in awe.

Thank you for taking this journey with us. 

Happy Monday!