Written by Karen Lease on 22nd August 1995

After loving a cat for 17 years, it can be unbelievably painful to watch her dying. That is what I am now doing with Mrs. Brown for the past year.

Mrs. Brown is the oldest brown Burmese, I have ever lived with for that length of time. She has been my constant companion but more than that the standard to which I have bred Burmese. I was there at her birth, showed her to her grand championship, helped her deliver her babies, worried when I desexed her, and love her as my pet all this time.

In September of last year, I felted a pea size lump just under her skin near her third set of nipples. For two days, I’d wrestled with my misgivings about taking her to the vet. After doing so, I agreed with him that based on my recent home renovation that the most likely explanation was that the lump was rubbish from renovating getting under her skin and lodging in the fatty deposit of her abdomen.

I readily agreed for its removal and was quite happy for no further diagnostic work to be perform. But doubts exists and I did ask for the lump to be preserved in formalin just in case. Did I know even then, I think so.

When a more fibrous lump returned almost immediately, I was quite happy to accept an explanation of tissue reaction. As the lump grew and changed over 4 months, I could no longer accept this. I asked for its removal and for its to be analyse.

On the day of its analyse, I went to lunch with two friends, who are Burmese breeders whom I have known for over 20 years and whose discretion and empathy is unquestionable. I knew that no words were necessary for them to say that they knew my feelings and that their support was given with total understanding.

The news was not unexpected but the pain was unbelievably. I wanted this cat to live forever. I was totally and utterly not willing to accept that this cat could not have treated to make her well. How many years had breast cancer existed? Why hadn’t the veterinary profession provide an answer?

Thankfully, I do have a wonderful vet who knew my feeling. It was his suggestion that I read all the literature past and present and if I wanted any treatment that he would perform it irrespective of time, cost or difficulties.

As I read the literature, I considered chemotherapy. Then I read the effects on the cat and abandon it for this animal I loved. I considered immunotherapy and asked for greater explanation and was almost set to start then I realised that a single injection that I could end this life. I wasn’t prepared to do that.

So, time became my enemy. Each day, I watch this beautiful animal grown skinner and skinner and no matter what I’d fed her, it still doesn’t alter her dreadful condition. Each day I watched small lesions appear on her beautiful brown coat, these too are cancers. It is slowly invading her entire body.

Each night I’d hold this fragile body, and remember the cat I loved. Her love of smoked salmon is my guide. I know that the day she will no longer eat her smoked salmon that I must take her for that final injection. I hope that I am strong enough and wise enough to know this time and give her the peace as she has given me unqualified love for all these years.