A Friday five of sorts.

Today is Her Majesty's 11th birthday. Well, her "date 8 weeks later than the date I adopted her 11 years ago, when she was ~8 weeks old according to the staff at Berkeley Humane Society," anyway.

(My first tattoo had its birthday Wednesday and is now old enough for a driver's license permit, by the way. Happy birthday, Max! And damn, I'm old.)

Much like Her Majesty's lovely Christmas presents, I'm pretty sure she didn't want to hear the following five phrases uttered in a sterile cold vet exam room as her "happy birthday!" wishes:

• "... the fact that she's not responding to such a consistently high dose of prednisilone*, and the chemo-lite drug that usually works wonders had no effect either, is not a good sign."
  
• "... at this point other more invasive options would just do harm."
• "... where are you with all of this...?" {long pause} "I'm frustrated, she's still herself but she's clearly uncomfortable if not miserable, and I'm not going to be selfish about this... I think it's time to let it go."
• "... I think you're making the right call."
  
• "... when the time comes there are vets who do home euthanasia."

And so, she is now on "kitty hospice" which means no new drugs and possibly eliminating the existing twice daily prednisolone which seems to be doing more harm than good at this point. (I'm inquiring tomorrow after the last ditch test results are in.) And then waiting an undetermined period of time until she becomes someone other than Her Majesty (e.g. lethargic, catatonic, aggressive, etc) and calling the vet for an appointment with a high dose of anesthetics.

So anyway... happy birthday, Damn Cat.


________________
* High doses of prednisilone = lowered inflammation and generally, quick response and recovery BUT also = potential kidney and liver failure and also = accelerated muscle degeneration, ironically (given all those sports folks who use steroids as performance enhancers) which = Her Majesty not responding and in addition, falling off of chairs and beds a lot lately. So along with everything else I'm constantly worried that she'll crack a rib on the new cushy desk chair I bought while I'm at work one day.