Regina Noctis

We’ve almost lost our best cat several times to asthma. He has been our beautiful and dear companion for more than a decade, and matters more to both my mom and me than practically anything. It’s been hard seeing him go through the asthma attacks, especially the really bad ones he’s had that nearly killed him. In between the attacks (which have been less of a problem this year, since we’ve learned to give the cat injections that knock the attack down long enough for us to get him to the vet) he’s had a good quality of life.

For the last, oh, probably two or two and a half months, we’ve been battling a constant infection and a constant case of ringworm. This things are to be expected when you have to keep a pet as immuno-suppressed as we’ve had to do with Whiskers because of the asthma. Medicating him is difficult, and we’ve had to do it pretty much every day for weeks on end now. It has reached the point where he is constantly angry at both of us. We can’t touch him without him growling at us. He runs and hides if we even appear to be walking in his direction. He views the constant medication as a form of torture, and treats us with fear and anger bordering on hatred anymore.

To cut down the number of pills and liquids we have to force on him, the vet has agreed to give Whiskers antibiotic injections to try and fight the severe infection around his mouth. However, the vet rather hinted – gently, but still hinted – that this might be the beginning of the end.

Mom told me this afternoon that if this doesn’t clear up pretty soon, we’ll have to put Whiskers down. I can understand what she’s saying. He’s miserable. He’s in pain. He doesn’t eat much because of it. He’s in a constant state of fear, stress, and anger. His quality of life has dropped into the basement. And neither of us want to force him to go on being miserable and sick and in pain every day, just for our selfish need to have him with us.

This is so hard. We’ve both been crying pretty much all day. I’m so upset that I’m nauseated and having difficulty keeping food down. The idea of losing Whiskers, of losing this cat which is absolutely a part of the family and that we love so much, is horrible. But so is the idea of him living in misery.

We’re going to wait and see if the shots work where nothing else has. But even if they do, it just delays the inevitable. This kind of opportunistic infection, once it hits an immuno-suppressed cat, keeps recurring, and becomes resistant to antibiotics. There’ll come a time, and relatively soon, that there will be nothing we can do to end the suffering except euthanasia. Probably sometime this year or next.