Charlie left us this afternoon.
During surgery Prue found that the tumour was massive - the size of two eggs. It had started to wrap around the nerves in his neck. As she removed it, and got down to the root, she found it had started to invade his lymph passages. In her experience, this indicated it will have spread, and there would be cancerous cells elsewhere. She said it was clearly very aggressive. While chemo was a possibility, it would have grown back, and she didn't think he would have more than 3-6 months with us.
Additionally, because it had started to wrap around the nerves, removing it disturbed them, and paralysed his larynx. She said this was likely to be temporary, but there was no way to know how long it would last - a few hours, a day, a few days, a week or more. It would require a tracheotomy so he could breathe. In cats, because of the secretions they produce, a trachy hole needs flushing very frequently. There's no way it would have been fair to put him through that. And then to put him through weeks or months of chemo, which would have required sedation because of how traumatised of vets he was.
She said usually most cats settle in - it's why they have them in there a day or two before procedures, to get them as chilled as possible. Charlie never settled properly. He was eating and sleeping, but wouldn't tolerate any interactions with the nurses or Prue. While he was there, he pulled out his leg stitches, no doubt through stress.
Had Charlie's demeanor been different, and had his larynx not been affected today, it may have been worth a shot, to at least give him and us a few more weeks, where he could come home and get settled. But the treatment required, plus the recovery from surgery and the trachy hole, would have been far too much for him. It would have been cruelty to put him through that, for what would have been my own selfish reasons to want to be able to hold him again.
He left us shortly after 4pm.
All the things are going through my mind. I know it was absolutely the kindest thing to do for him. That's not in question. I'm trying to hold the 'what if' thoughts at bay, because I know there was no way we could have known what this was without all the exploratory work we did. I know we couldn't have caught it earlier, because he'd been having regular checks and was for all intents and purposes the fittest 15 year old moggy around. But as you can imagine, apart from the obvious grief and inability to process a life without him here, I can't get it out of my mind that his last days were spent away from me, in a place he hated, so scared, so angry, feeling abandoned. As much as I understand the rationalisations - that I was doing the right thing trying to help him, and there was nothing else I could do - that doesn't help when I imagine him there, alone and frightened. This was my absolute worst nightmare, the last thing I ever wanted to happen, his last thoughts being thought in fear. As much as the pain will fade, I'll never, I think, fully get over that.
Thank you for all your kind words and support and encouragement. You've all been there following Charlie's tribulations over the past couple of years, and I've drawn a lot of strength from being able to talk about it all.
RIP my sweet darling Charlie of Doom. I'll always love you.
- whilst they've got the needle and thread out - anything else need sewing up?
at Colin the Bastard but what can you do
But there you go.
