March flew by, then April, and then the homestretch of my freshman year was upon me. I was frantically studying for exams, and dealing with losing one renter and gaining another. I was also tweaking Mr. Tabby’s chemo schedule so that I could be gone for two weeks with the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association on a spay/neuter trip, which started the day after finals.
I thought about backing out of the trip, but I’d been planning on it for a while before Mr. Tabby got sick, and I knew it would be a fantastic opportunity. Still, I had one eye on the door just in case I needed to bail out.
About two weeks before finals, I looked over and saw Mr. Tabby snoozing peacefully in the sun, and, for the millionth time, I was really, really happy that I’d started chemo. Mr. Tabby seemed to be in better spirits than he’d ever been. But something made me grab my camera and start snapping as many pictures of him as I could.
That something wouldn’t show up until two weeks later. The day before finals, he seemed a tiny bit off, but not enough to warrant dragging him in to the hospital. I drove down to school with explicit instructions to the handsome other to call me if anything got worse. I took my first final and then called home.
“Well, he’s not really worse but he’s not really better. He puked up a lot and he’s been hiding under the futon all day.”
GGGGAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! I couldn’t really fault the better half, since he isn’t all that experienced with cat behavior, and cats do have a tendency to just lie around all day, but to me this signaled a major turn for the worse. I drove straight home, grabbed Mr. Tabby, and drove right back to school.
Mr. Tabby’s PCV was nine. NINE. For non-medical readers, PCV measures red blood cell concentration. Anything below about 25ish is anemic. Mr. Tabby wasn’t just anemic, he was practically dead.
I didn’t understand all that at the time, though, since I hadn’t really learned much about blood work yet. In retrospect, I probably would have euthanized him right then if I’d had a decent understanding of the various processes at work in him, but I was just a freshman, and all I knew was that my kitty had been fine just two days before. They started a blood transfusion, and I tried not to think about the fact that I had three more finals to take, not to mention needing to clean out the rental and pack for my trip.
The ER doc was fantastic, and so was the oncologist (not the resident–this time I got the boss). They treated me like a veterinary professional in training, rather than a dumb student, but they also treated me with love and kindness as a client in a stressful situation. For that, I am eternally grateful. They even offered to get me out of my remaining exams for a while.
And my trip… my trip! I couldn’t leave now, when Mr. Tabby was sick, but it was a little bit late to be backing out four days before. What to do?
After his transfusion, Mr. Tabby surprised everyone by not only wolfing down his supper, but also grooming himself afterward. Always the proper gentleman, that one. His PCV had also returned to a less scary number. We would wait and see what the morning brought.
I lingered with him in critical care, and was again glad to be a student, glad to have access to the hospital’s inner sanctum, so I could sing Mr. Tabby a lullaby and snuggle with him a little before leaving him for the night.
Thank God I didn’t have a final the next day.
The ER doc called me at 7:30 a.m. and said I should probably get back to the hospital, since Mr. Tabby was anemic again. That meant his body was destroying the new cells.
“Could you take me through the list of things that could be causing that?” I asked.
She listed the possibilities one by one, giving me time to think about each item. I would think for a bit, declare “not fixable,” and then she’d move on to the next differential. Her ability to guide me through this horrible decision tree was incredible: her statements were simple enough that I could understand them with my freshman knowledge, but not so simple as to be condescending. She challenged me just enough to feel as though I was actually reasoning through the case.
She also provided the perfect amount of moral support, and was genuinely caring. When I think of this now, I tear up just thinking of how beautifully this woman handled this situation. That’s the kind of vet everyone wants to be, and she seemed to manage it effortlessly.
She had reached the end of the list, and I had declared “not fixable” after every one. It was time.
