Happy 15th birthday, Gracie!

Today is Gracie’s fifteenth birthday. It is remarkable on several levels. She’s the oldest cat I’ve ever had, beating my first Tigger by a year and a half, now. And, well, I always thought it would be Tigger 2 who would still be here, and Gracie the one that was gone.

She has allergy-related asthma. She had it so badly in NJ that I used to give her pills and shots. In fact, she was diagnosed with it after another fruitless exam by the vet, just as we were leaving–because she had an asthma attack in her carrier as I was paying my bill. Worse, she seized. I spent 30 minutes with her in the part of the vet’s office where they don’t usually let you stay, watching as the vet fought to save her life. Shots, more shots, then oxygen for 30 minutes. I spoke to her while she purred at me, sitting in some kind of enclosure while pure oxygen was pumped in and her breathing changed from open-mouthed, shuddering gasps to the normal in-and-out. “So,” the vet told me, “I’ve figured out what she has now.”

Six years ago, many of you probably remember she was very ill. My then-vets couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She couldn’t keep any food down. She lost a ton of weight. They did exploratory surgery and found nothing, because they were effing incompetent. They wanted to play with their new toys instead of, say, checking the medical books that had the classic symptoms of IBD. They didn’t collect samples while they were inside Gracie, so she had to have surgery twice thanks to their incompetence. As soon as she was positively diagnosed with IBD, my new vet gave me Prednosone for her, which cured her pretty quickly. Miss Bony Butt filled out again. She grew fur over her Frankenkitty scar (thankfully!).

She has a heart murmur. It’s getting a bit worse each year, but it doesn’t seem to bother her in the least. During her last exam, my current vet told me we’d have to discuss treatment if it gets any worse, and I told him there will be no treatment. No meds, no operations, no nothing. Gracie is a happy, happy girl. She’s going to live out the rest of her life naturally, and die of natural causes, I hope. But she’s fifteen years old, and for that, I am very, very grateful.

I will never forget how much help you all were during those awful weeks. My co-blogger, Snoopy the Goon, has a daughter who is an excellent vet and a wonderful person. She spoke to me on the phone and gave me good advice about how to proceed. And Ellen Carozza of AMCGLTD is the one who first suggested it might be IBD, which started me down the path to getting rid of my incompetent vets and getting a great new set of vets who I love to this day. (Just yesterday, I was talking to one of them, and when I mentioned Gracie’s birthday, he told me that he was worried she wouldn’t make it when I first brought her in. I’m so glad he never told me that six years ago.) And six years ago, many of you helped me financially, hitting the tipjar when I really needed it–for Gracie.

The picture in this post was taken yesterday morning. My Princess Gracie. And to think, I was originally going to take only Tig. I’m so glad I changed my mind. Happy birthday, Sweetness!