My "old man"-cat Diesel is very very sick right now. He's just shy of 15 years old, and a mere 3 months ago was in perfect health. However, for the last week he's been slowly getting... "rounder" if you will. I didn't really notice it until sunday, but thought that since he'd been getting into the kitten's new food he might be a bit gassy, and it DID decrease a little on Monday. However, Tuesday morning he was as big as ever, and so I trundled him in to work with me, where radiographs promptly showed it wasn't gas... it was fluid. His weight was also up a pound and a half from his weigh in 3 months ago. He frankly looks like he ate a volleyball.

Our first thoughts were a truly terrible disease known as FIP or Feline Infectious Peritonitis that is caused by a random mutation of a virus that every cat in existence has. We sent in a small sample of the fluid and it came back negative for the characteristics of FIP, which is good. The bad news is that anything likely to cause that much fluid build up is going to kill him. The question is simply "when?". We've pretty much narrowed it down to either cardiac, or cancer, and tomorrow he's having an ultrasound done, which should give us the final answer on cause. The final final answer though is that it is highly unlikely that Diesel will still be with me in two or three months.... and that's me being optomistic. Truthfully, odds are he won't see the end of January... maybe no even the beginning.

This has me really shaken up. It's been only a year and a half since I lost my dog to his various cancers, and while I haven't had Diesel for even 2 full years yet, I love him just as much as I loved Aussie.

Diesel was 13 when his original owner brought him into my clinic to be put to sleep. This was a cat we all knew well and loved dearly for his incredibly upbeat attitude, easy to generate purr, and penchant for fuzzy belly rubs. His owner was bringing him in because he was urinating in places other than his litter box. Apparently, she did not notice the 8 lb weight loss, and did not notice the increase in appetite and drinking, and did not anything of the fact that the younger cat she got a few years prior was an evil sadistic shit and wasn't letting Diesel get to the cat-box at all... No. She wanted him euthanised.

We basically said "Fuck you" and got her to sign the cat over to the hospital. It took one simple test to find out what was wrong with Dees, and his blood sugar being up at 495 was pretty clear cut. My boyo was diabetic. We started him on insulin, put him on a GOOD diet, one that is 45% protein versus 20-something, and within 6 months he actually did not need insulin anymore. We basically fixed him.

That was when I took him home and he joined my feline family. He quickly became top-cat and took absolutely no guff from the other creature (read: puppy) that shared his domain. In fact, one of the funniest things I've ever seen is that Diesel would walk up to my dog, smack him in the face, walk in a large circle and once he was in front of my dog... smack him again. Kumo would just stare at me going "But... why?" I laughed so hard whenever this happened.

Night time was also great. All the kitties in my room (except for the newest evil little bastard kitten... Hawthorn, I love but I swear!) understand "sleepy time". Rowan sleeps on the left side of my head, Diesel sleeps on the right side, and my dog sleeps draped over me. I can't move at night, but I'm certainly warm. All I have to do is turn my head into Diesel's fur and the purr immediately kicks into high gear.

I'm going to miss him so very very much.

*update* We did the ultrasound. He has peritoneal and mesenteric carcinomatosis... basically, the lining of his abdomen, and the tissue that holds the intestines in place are chock full of cancer. We pulled 560mls (almost 1.5lbs) worth of fluid from his abdomen before he grew impatient...he probably has at least that much more still in there. He's having issues walking, he's dehydrated and chronically thirsty but uninterested entirely in food.

I hadn't, until just now, really seen how much difficulty he is having... I'd wanted to euthanise him monday, but I'm thinking that tomorrow is much more likely... after a visit with Santa for some pictures to remember him by.