[Macfanforever]

Originally Posted by kak125

I love all your pictures of Buttons. She was such a beautiful girl. Its all so hard. The guilt is the worst part it will eat you up and destroy you if you let it. What helped for me was just keeping myself very busy and going away on a few vacations. Having that extra time to relax made me think about things so much more clearly.
Tank was the first cat I ever had pass away and I still constantly cry about him. Our beautiful boy was only 12 when he passed and never had an issue until he turned 11. It started out with having to have a few teeth removed and then with blood work is was discovered his ALT was raised and then over the course of a few months he would have bouts where he wasnt eating and puking. My other cat had his gallbladder out around the same time so I took Tank to the same internal medicine doc at a place called PVSEC in Pittsburgh. He would get better but in July they did a liver aspirate to see if he had Lymphoma and at the time it came back negative. September hit and he completely stopped eating again and a feeding tube was put in and he tested positive for lymphoma in November. We took him every week for chemo and he did really well he was such a trooper and gave all the techs and docs kisses he was just such a loving cat that really just wanted to be held and petted 24/7.
After a few months they changed his chemo to every 3 weeks and around April it was discovered that his bile duct kept dilating. The docs kept an eye on it and then on May 12th they decided to operate on him and sew his gallbladder to his small intestine. His bile duct at that point was 1.7 cm and they were very worried it was going to rupture. At the time Tank only had a few remaining cancer cells left in his liver but he was steadily losing weight even though he was eating a lot of food. When they did the surgery they also took biopsies of his small intestine and liver and stuff and then they put in a feeding tube.
We lost Tank on May 17th. We got to take him home on that Monday and he looked great but very skinny. The next morning he kept laying in his litter box and didnt want anything to do with me but he was still on pain meds so I figured he was just being weird from those. I went to feed him through his tube that day at 1:30 and I am pretty sure he passed just a few minutes later after he violently threw up. I wasnt quite sure if he was still alive so I rushed him to PVSEC and they brought him back but said that since he was without oxygen for a while he would never be the same so we had to put him down. It was the most heart wrenching thing I have ever gone through to have seen my baby boy pass away twice and to be the one feeding him when it happened. There is always a part of me that will always question what really happened because even though aspiration was listed as the final cause of his death I still believe something else was going on. I have pictures of him earlier that day and he didnt even look like himself. My hubby and I loved him with all our hearts and pray that one day we get to see him again.
We will get more cats someday but not right now since we still have Gimzo our IBD cat to take care of. We are so happy to still have Gizmo. I always say he is a miracle cat every single day he's here is a blessing. He's had a hiatal hernia, IBD, ulcers, cholangeohepatitis, pancreatitis and his gallbladder removed and he still is the happiest boy in the world. I think animals really are just so amazing and to find that unconditional love is really something special.
Here is a pic of our baby T that was taken just a few months before he passed. He always looked like a kitten to me.

Thanks for the kind word about Buttons.I wish I was more alert with her issues that were coming up quickly .Sorry to hear about your Tank.He went through alot I see Gizmo has too and I will say prayers for Gizmo to be with you for a long time.Animals insides run like ours and they need to be taking care of like us when we get ill.They cant speak like us saying "I dont feel good" .Thats a beautiful pix of Tank.