2020 was a doozy of a year for everyone, but 2021 has continued to be one of the worst years for me in a long, long time.

Jester was having increasing episodes of vomiting over February and early March, which lead us to taking him to be checked out at a local emergency clinic over a weekend, which was wildly unhelpful and we ended up following up with our routine doctor the following Monday to get a serious workup and look at what is going on with him. After multiple appointments, which included bloodwork, x-rays, fluids, medications, overnight hospitalizations and a few different types of ultrasounds in one week, we discovered that he had a polyp (which actually turned out to be two polyps in hindsight) on the edge of his gastric pyloris (the bit of muscle that connects the stomach to the small intestine and allows food to be passed from the stomach to the intestines for further digestion) that was intermittently causing a blockage—essentially the polyp was protruding in a way that was sometimes okay, but would move and block the pyloris at other times, making it so his stomach couldn’t empty properly and would fill up with fluid/gas/food, causing him to be nauseated and projectile vomit the contents. During this time (February to March, including his hospitalizations during this time) he lost a total of 3.5 pounds, which is a lot for a 13-pound kitty, and was not getting proper nutrition. Prior to this incident he had a presumed diagnosis of IBD and at the beginning of this incident we were wondering if it was just his IBD flaring up, but alas it was not.

We ended up choosing to have the polyp(s) removed surgically less than a week later (thankfully a close friend worked at the hospital and was able to get the process expediated and taken as seriously as it needed to be) and the first couple of days post-surgery, although hard because seeing an animal recovery from surgery is difficult emotionally, he was slowly improving and it was successful. After day 5 or so, when he wasn’t improving as much as he should have been by now (hardly eating at all, only a small lick or two of wet food once a day, low energy, etc.) we decided to take him in to be checked out and it was a good thing we did because he had developed an abscess on the upper part of his surgical incision. They scheduled us for a sedated procedure to clean it out the next morning and we were sent home with antibiotics to start that night. At the procedure the next morning, however, we discovered that the situation was way more dire than expected and they had to reopen his incision and he endured a second surgery. During this procedure we discovered that the abscess had burned a hole in his body wall up close to his diaphragm. Normally, they would surgically cut out the dead tissue, but because this was done in my small animal clinic and not a big hospital, the surgeon did not want to risk nicking his diaphragm and causing his lung to collapse. So, she went for a hail mary and put a few stitches in it and cleaned it out thoroughly, placed a drain in his incision and sent us home with even more antibiotics to try in hopes that one of the two antibiotics would be susceptible to the bacteria causing the infection while we waited for culture results to come back. During this time, we were at high risk for sepsis. If the stitches didn’t hold and any bacteria leaked into his abdomen he would get sepsis and die. We were playing it hour by hour and day by day for that week. Miraculously enough, he survived. In hindsight, we learned that none of the doctor’s involved thought he was going to survive this time and were certain the stitches wouldn’t hold and he would die within a few days of that second procedure. He was a miracle kitty. He was on antibiotics and other combinations of drugs for over a month to eliminate the infection and it slowly healed over time, all the while he got to wear a cone of shame for a long time to prevent him from licking or ripping open the wounds and disrupting the healing process.

During the original surgical procedure to remove the polyps, we also decided to take some biopsies of portions of his GI tract that looked abnormal to try to get an affirmative diagnosis of IBD or whatever happened to be going on. This situation was also a doozy in the midst of all of the other chaos. The initial results from his biopsies looked really grim and had a possibility of being the worst of the worst large cell lymphoma in his intestines, but was not conclusive. We received this information the night before his second surgical procedure and were feeling really grim and sad about the possibility of losing him no matter what in the next few weeks to a month, even with treatment (chemo). This was all on our mind the day of receiving the devastating news about the possibility of sepsis. The pathologists continued to do further testing to try to get conclusive results, but were stumped, even after doing two more rounds of final testing over a month and a half period. The only conclusive news we got from these results is that he did not currently (at the time of biopsy) have cancer, the suspicious spots were non-granular, and that there was inflammatory processes going on in his intestines (which we already suspected and knew). The pathlogists were stumped and even paid for a portin of the additional testing because the results were so inconclusive and confusing. They wanted to know what was going on just as badly as we did and have emphazied that we followup with them on any additional information we obtain because they want to know that badly.

Needless to say, this was an extremely difficult time for us emotionally, financially, and mentally between the crisis of surgery and worrying about sepsis, while the possibility of the worst of the worst cancers lingered. It was a rollercoaster of emotions for two months straight. I ended up taking more than 6 days off during the two to three week time period that this all took place and was written up at work as a result of doing so because I had more than 4 absences without a doctor’s note. This was also devastating for me, as it was just icing on the cake to a really stressful and shitty time. I was not okay at all and my mental health was really deteriorated due to all the stress and uncertainty of worrying about him and living day to day and moment to moment. I was almost catatonic in my ability to function in any way other than caring for him; I was not caring for myself and was in absolute hysterics about anything minor that happened during this period. A few days later, after coming to terms that I was really unwell, I decided to take a 2-3 week leave of absence (LOA) to take care of myself and this relieved me of stress almost instantly. I didn’t have to worry about making it to work and getting work things done on top of everything else and that made everything else slightly more tolerable. However, due to all the absences and half-days I took during the few weeks prior, I had unknowingly completely eliminated all of the vacation and sick leave pay. So, I was not paid at all during this LOA and only received about 1/7 of the amount of pay I would normally get in a two-week period because I had only worked two days of that pay period. Because of this added monetary stress, I decided to go back to work earlier than intended from my LOA. I was doing better mentally and needed to be earning money again before things go worse.

The same day that I started my LOA, our elderly dog (14 years old and dealing with ongoing cognitive dysfunction and GOLPP) Roxy started presenting symptoms of an extremely bad UTI and was urinating blood everywhere every five minutes or so. Because when it rains, it pours. She ended up needing two courses of antibiotics this time because the first round did not get rid of symptoms entirely and she still had an infection upon follow-up urinalysis. During this time period, we also noticed a bump appearing on her back hip and it was affecting the way she walked. So, we ended up taking her in to have it checked out and after some x-rays, aspirations of the bumps, and an ultrasound, we discovered they were benign fatty lumps beneath the muscle layer and were of no concern. The following month or so with Roxy we started noticing her symptoms of cognitive decline and of her GOLPP increasing and worsening, until ultimately, she was starting to have accidents of both kinds in the house multiple times a day, whereas previously she was only experiencing urinary incontinence at nighttime which was manageable with medication and wearing diapers for bedtime. In the beginning of May, things rapidly progressed and we ultimately decided to choose humane euthanasia before she started to suffer even more. This was an extremely hard decision and was absolutely devastating, even though I had been mentally preparing for her loss the last couple of years. She would have been 15 years old at the end of this July.

During the course of everything that happened first with Jester and then with Roxy, we spent over $5,000 on credit cards (not including the fact that a close friend helped with the surgical costs, which probably would have doubled how much we spent during this time and I am forever grateful for her). Luckily, I have CareCredit and am able to pay them back without interest for a certain time period, but all of these charges are rapidly approaching as we slowly make payments to pay it off. At this time, mid-July, I still owe just over $4,000 and am expecting to increase this number over the coming weeks with some follow-up ultrasounds and testing to see how Jester’s GI disease is doing and whether anything has changed in the last 4 months.

Multiple people reached out and asked how they could help during this time and I didn’t have the executive function at the time to convey the ways we could use help. Things have started to calm down and stabilize (Jester is doing great—he’s gone back up to 11 pounds from the 9ish he was at the worst during this all and has a follow-up appoint next week!), so I’m finally getting around to starting this and giving a way for those who would like to help to do so. Thank you so much in advance, I greatly appreciate your generosity. I still look at him and tell him I love him and how happy and thankful I am that he’s still alive every single day.