~Alkaline-Lady

Moved out of my parents house about a week and a half ago into a beautiful apartment right next to the ocean. I walk upstairs and I'm at work...I'm living with my roommate from college, I'm working for nine bucks an hour cleaning up after cats.

Things are awesome. I read, I sleep, I work, I write, I draw, I sing when I'm bored, walk around the beautiful grounds and down on the beach.

I just keep humming this silly song while enjoying the sunlight and the steam rising off the ocean. It's like this big sigh of relief. I know I have to fix my truck, I just had a tooth pulled and I still need to get my stuff from the 'rents house but for some reason I'm not stressing about it. Life...life is good.

Ahhh, yeah. That's the rub.

IS MY BIRTHDAY

This year's been pretty hectic and more than a little stressful but I'm celebrating my birthday today and it's good. I have a cake with the creamy type of frosting I like, I have my friend Jess over and she, Justin and I are going out to Texas roadhouse tonight for tasties : )

It's my twenty-first ^^ W00h!

I had to put Stripey down today. I woke up at eleven to miserable weather and a phone call for my friend and I to have a nice day out and I found a note downstairs saying Stripey had a nosebleed.
I found him in my sister's room.
He had a nosebleed that had lasted at least four hours. I called my mother and she said she'd left at seven thirty or so. I called the vet immediately after that only to be told I had to wait until 1:45. We were still late to the appointment because we had to get my baby into the carrier.
I've never felt so low. I took him in and listened as the vet explained that the mass in his liver wasn't limited to just his liver, but had gotten into his bone marrow, killing the platelets or whatever you call them that aid in clotting. His blood wasn't clotting and he was so miserable before I got him into the carrier.
He peed in his carrier on accident. He was apologetic about it and all I could do was cry and hold him. I didn't make my vet's job any easier by bawling my broken heart out. I held him while they gave him the shot and as he left. The last things my baby heard was "I love you baby" blurted about fifty million times between sobs. I held him until the vet came to take him.
I can't believe I woke up this morning thinking everything was okay again for a little while.
The rugs gone. I'm not putting it back on the floor just to get pulled out again.
My heart hurts. It's gonna hurt for a while I think. I'm so tempted to just give up, I hurt so bad.

I went to the vets today with my Stripey monster. Things aren't good. He's got several little masses on his liver, nothing in any solid mass, just little nodules, and they're pushing on his stomach as well as making his liver go out of whack. It's going to eventually kill him.
I can't afford to give him an ultra-sound to pinpoint anything and even if I did, there's no saying if they could actually do anything to correct it. If I had unlimited resources they'd be going to Dr. LeHaye to make sure my baby comes home healthy.
Cancer of the liver, and I don't know how long he's going to be with me. I'm stuck with making the hardest goddamn decision I've ever had to make. Do I keep him with me knowing he's going to deteriorate? There's no pain involved and I know I could keep him happy with canned catfood, snuggles and make sure he's warm and safe when the time comes. Or do I let him go and put him down? He's going to deteriorate. I know that. Do I want to spare him that or do I want to keep him with me to the last possible second.
I think I'm going to have to keep him with me. I can make his last weeks, days, hours however long he has good ones.
I don't know. It's just killing me inside, I guess. I have to decide whether my furry four-legged soul-baby is going to live or die.
God life sucks.

For some of you guys I'm sure this sounds pretty dumb but for any pet lovers I think it will make some sense.
I've got a thirteen year old domestic short haired tabby, by name of Stripey. Stripey, Stripes, Stripey Monster, baby-boy, my beautiful baby, kittums, all those booboo noises that we use for nicknames for him you know the drill.
I was there when he was born, I know his entire pedigree from time spent on the farm where his forefathers and mothers were born and raised. I brought him home when I was about seven or eight years old, when I first moved to Morrill, the place I currently live with my parents.
I've had him for thirteen brilliant years. He's my sounding board, my writing editor, my critic for my artwork, attacker of computer cursors, vibrating X-box controllers, and anything that might try to hurt me, including two ex-boyfriends and countless prospects I'd be better without. He's my cuddle buddy, my shawl, and my four-legged, fur covered baby.
He's also not a spring chicken. He's getting old and it's starting to show. It hurts him on some cold days to move, and now suddenly he's dropped a lot of weight. I'm thinking it might be his mouth, maybe a few abcesed teeth or something but I almost know it's something more sinister than that.
I came back from my shitty semester at school and all of a sudden my baby was an old man in a housefull of "kids" with the new dogs and the younger cats.
What's worse is my mother says things to the cat that for some reason just rip my heart out. The worst I've found is "Don't worry Stripey-monster, your Mumma's home. She'll make it all better." And then all I can do is look down at that handsome pink-nose, green eyes, and tacky brown,black and white striped tuxedo and then he purrs at me and it's all I can do not to outright break down.
I've spent a lot of time with him, sprawled out on my heating pad stroking his side, feeling each and every rib in his frail little body and wishing for more time to be with my baby or better that I could just take it all away and turn him back to the cocky beautiful bastard he was in his prime.
We've got an appointment with the vet tomorrow at three. I'm scared to go. It might be just teeth, but if it's not and I have to come home with an empty cat carrier, I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to be strong for him, to smile and just cuddle him, but I know the moment I start crying for him it's all going to be about me, his little voice asking if I'm okay and trying to kiss away my pain with his little face.
It's stuff like this that makes it so damned hard to get out of bed in the morning.