Not Long For This World

Ok, so the title is a bit dramatic, I'll admit, but Mortimer was diagnosed with Feline AIDS yesterday. The doctor says he could have several more good years ahead of him. Still, it's a bit sobering.

Mort has had this ongoing respiratory infection for the last 6 months or so. We've tried a few different antibiotics and the symptoms seem do go away for a little bit but they come back. He just can't shake it. This is what prompted the FAIDS test. He does not have leukemia, so that's good news.

He has a deep ear polyp and the doctor speculates that that could be the source of the infection. Then again, it may not be. There is a surgical procedure for removing the polyp, but no one around here does it. He is in no pain because of it, and we decided that given his age and condition it's not worth the trauma of putting him through a surgery that would require so much travel and time.

I often question putting cats through traumatic surgeries that require a lot of recovery. It's easy to anthropomorphize them and forget that they are not human. Even if they come out of it healthy there can be a psychological aspect that is hard to quantify.

I always think back to a cat we had when I was a kid. He was hit by a car and we opted for major surgery to save him. This required a long period of confinement for recuperation. The poor cat was just never the same after the whole ordeal. I was a kid at the time, and didn't think much about it then, but in retrospect, I don't think the heroic efforts were the right way to go with that cat.

I've already made the decision that I won't let Mort suffer and there will be no surgeries in his future. He has had a very long and difficult life, but the last 5 or 6 years have been very good for him. It doesn't seem right to put him through something that he may see as torture just so I can spend a few more months or years with him. When I feel the time has come, I'll put him to sleep.

When I first started the blog I wrote about how I met Mortimer. I wasn't really sure what to write about at the time, so Mort seemed like a good topic. I mentioned how he runs up to my truck every day when I get home from work. He still does it. Sometimes when I tell people this they say he only does it because he's hungry, but I know that's not it.

It doesn't matter how many times I pull up in a day, or how hungry or full he his, if he sees me pull up he runs out to the truck and greets me. It seemed like a good time to get this on video so I took my camera with me to work today. I wasn't worried that this might take several tries to get the shot. He does it every time rain or shine.