Operation Day

Last night I got home from work late and Pirate met me to the door.  She took me straight in to see Three Paw (who she even head-nuzzled for the first time ever. Things must be grave.) The tumor looked horrific. Rupturing like lava out of her leg. It was clear to me that everyone in the room was completely fed up with it and the time to vote it off the island had come.

In the morning we left early for Florence. I could smell her tumor from outside the cage but I could also hear her purr above the train engine.

When I got to the clinic, I kept the goodbyes short. I had already said everything that I needed to say to her. I just reminded her that she was free to do and go wherever and whenever she wanted. That her family back in Istanbul loved her very much and that we all wanted the best for her, for the suffering to cease.

I spent the day in a kind of exhausted stupor and then in the evening I returned to see her. She was less than an hour out of the operating theater. Her eyes were dark circles ( from the morphine I suspect:) I don't think she even knew what had just happened to her. I opened the door and she immediately nuzzled her head into my hand and I knew she would be OK.

The Decision

So today Alberto, Three Paw and I sat down to make the most important decision of her life. To be honest she just sat in her carrier, purring enthusiastically, but for the humans in the room the mood was far more somber.

The tumor has become intolerable. In size and in smell ( a rancid combination of rotting flesh that permeates the whole house, even the bedclothes.) She finds it very hard to walk even though she still does. Leaping up to my bed to cuddle up against me.

Even Pirate looks disgusted now and she enjoys dirty underpants.

Eventually Alberto turned to me and said those dreaded words. 'We need to think about putting her to rest or amputating her leg.' I looked at my girl, watching me though the carrier and I said ' What would you do?' which vets must really hate.

But Alberto rose to the occasion and said exactly what I knew that we both wanted to say. That when Three Paw had first come into the clinic she was just one of the many cats he saw suffering from cancer. That he thought amputation was impossible because of her current situation. However then he had got to know her and her indomitable spirit. That she was this incredible life force with such a will to live that now he felt differently. Now he thought we should give her the choice. Do the operation and see how she fared. If she adapted and was happy, it would be a joyful success. If she struggled or was in pain, then we would let her go.

I turned to Alberto and said ' promise me she won't suffer.'

'I won't let her,' he replied.

Amputation is on Wednesday