My family's cat, Hunter, was diagnosed with cancer today, during an exploratory surgery, meant to see if we could find the cause of him getting thinner then was healthy (emaciated, would be a good term). The vet found a cancerous tumor, and since it would have been cruel to let him wake up and eventually end up in pain and slowly die, they put him to sleep. We buried him on Friday, August 17th, 2007, at about 4:45pm, at the age of 5.
He was an extremely lovable, short-haired, light orange-sherbet colored cat, who drooled a lot =P He was named Hunter, because he was the first of his litter to catch something on his own. He grew up with a family who loved him and cuddled him. He was uncomfortable with our other cats, of which we first had 9, then 7, then 6, and started constantly marking territory about a year and a half ago. He became an outdoor cat, occasionally coming inside to be loved up (with constant watching, because he still got stressed when he came indoors and was around the other cats in close quarters). He was SOO much happier! He'd get fat in the winter, and skinny in the summer.
But this summer he started getting TOO skinny, and we tried to fatten him up by giving him wet food and kittenchow, keeping the other cats away, but it didn't work, and for several days at the end, he wasn't eating very much. We wanted to take him in, but he'd taken to disappearing for days at a time (and when he came back home, he looked skinnier then before he left, like he wasn't eating at all), and when he was home, we were either too busy or it wasn't a good day to take him in to the vet's office. Well, we finally did on Wednesday, two days ago, and the vet kept him overnight because it felt like he had either stool that wouldn't come out, or some kind of tumor. It turned out that, as said, he had a cancerous tumor below his ribcage, pressing on his stomach, thereby gradually reducing the amount he could eat and hold in his stomach, and taking away all of his energy.
We all loved Hunter very much, and even though I know he's in Heaven with God, where he'll see his mom and always be happy, I still cried, and I still miss him. This is in remembrance of him. When Dad dumps the pictures from his phone onto the computer, I will see if I can upload some pictures of Hunter to my gallery.
We love you Hunter, and we'll miss you.