GALing and Boundaries with XH

[AntoniaB]

Well, the thing that I was sort of thinking in the back of my mind happened...and this is VERY off topic from the stuff above.

I have wondered what I'd do if one of my cats became ill, possibly needing to be euthanized, and whether I'd involve XH or not.

It's happened...and I think everyone thinks I'm jumping to conclusions here, but I think my hunch/gut is right, and I think one of my, as in "our", cats has cancer. I have 10 cats--4 of whom XH barely knows as I adopted them when he was in the process of bailing. The other 6 are old timers. One is about 15 years old. She went nearly blind 4 years ago and we moved her from outdoor life to indoor life. She gets around fine as long as her environment isn't altered a lot, and she's on bp meds to keep her from going totally blind. She has a lot of skin cancer lesions from living outdoors so long, and she may have a nasal tumor as she has some permanent congestion issues. But she's pretty much a happy cat. Well, it appears that overnight (virtually) her lymph nodes have gone haywire on her right side of her body. Huge, firm lump, swollen joint/musculature, pain...

I just have a feeling that this is the final cancer blowup that the vet suspected would happen someday...her coat is SO bad lately, and she's been hugely vocal and crying.

I gave her some pain meds and she stopped all the crying. She trembles if I push on the lump.

I have a feeling that they'll tell me that I can either throw hundreds of dollars into diagnosis and then find it's cancer, or I can euthanize her. But surgery on the lymphs...I just think I'd be trying to stop the inevitable and I don't know how well a blind cat recuperates with an invasive surgery.

So...I have never had to euthanize a pet. XH and I only had to do this once, and he took care of it and would never speak of it as it was our first cat we had in college and he and I were both distraught over her death about 6 years ago.

I'm not going to say I can't handle it alone. It's going to be awful, but I've faced worse.

I guess the reason I'm writing is that there is a tiny part of me that feels guilty, like I should tell him that this is coming..but there is also a larger part of me that says "Antonia, he's forgotten the cats. He's never inquired about them since last Christmas (he sent me a check for xmas for 1000.00 and said it was "for me and the cats to have a nice Christmas.") If you tell him, what's your reason, other than to try to make him feel some of the pain you're going to feel, and what's the point anymore? Just feel it on your own."

So...thoughts? That's where I'm at right now. I expect to take her to the vet Monday a.m. and may end up "doing the deed" on Monday. I almost feel like it is better to do it faster than sit here for days prolonging my agony when she clearly has a serious problem here.

Honestly I'll be shocked beyond belief if this is not cancer. There are just too many signs.