Biffy's Diary, Part 4

Continued from Biffy's Diary, Part 3

December 02, 1998 at 19:09:14:

Biffy's new drug (cytosar) was put off until Tuesday since his WBC went down from 141,000 to 84,000. That's still very high, but at least it's going in the right direction!

December 07, 1998 at 21:07:12:

Biffy is getting his new chemo drug, cytosar, tomorrow. Dr Z will give him one shot under the skin....and then Jeff will give Biffy one tomorrow night. He has to have 2 more on Wednesday as well. They are breaking them up into 4 shots to make sure it is easier on Biffy. Biffy will have another CBC tomorrow too, and we have to watch his White Blood Count. All this makes me very nervous.

Please keep the prayers coming. Biffy is losing more weight again. :(

December 31, 1998 at 18:11:05:

Our hearts are breaking. Biffy was getting so weak. Today we made the decision to let him go. We lost him at 4:05pm.

I don't know what else to say. We loved him so much, and he fought so hard. Our vet said this was the right thing to do, and at the right time.

Posted by Jeff on January 01, 1999 at 02:06:28:

I didn't think I would take losing Biffy so badly. I thought I had mentally prepared myself that we were going to lose him soon. He has been getting progressively weaker lately, and I knew that he was "in trouble".

When I got home from work today, Diane was really afraid for him. We finally decided to call the vet, arrange for him look at Biffy, and then the three of us would make the decision. After the phone call, Biffy walked across the room, sat down and ate a bunch of roast beef. Diane nuzzled him as he ate, and she told me he was purring. That made it REALLY hard to feel like it was "time". But we had to make a logical decision based not on how he seemed at that moment, but rather based on what we knew was just down the road for him. He has had so many ups and downs, that I always told Diane that we were riding a roller coaster with Biffy, and we had to ride out the tough times. Biffy was just getting so weak and wobbly that I knew that the time was finally getting close. We truly wanted to spare him from any bad days.

When we brought him to the vet, we had a long talk with him. He has been great with us and with Biffy. Biffy just laid on his side on the table almost the whole time. Dr. Z has never seen him like that; Biffy was almost always looking for an exit. We all finally agreed that the time was right, that the inevitable was probably only days away.

Now that he's gone, it has really hit me hard. He was the center of our lives for so long; now there is such emptiness. I miss him so much.

I know he loved me - especially me - even though I was the one doing all the "nasties" (the pills, the shots, the sub-q fluids, the forced feedings or rather the "assisted" feedings as I preferred to call them). When I first started his medications and treatments, Biffy was getting afraid of me any time I came near him. He would start to run when he saw me coming. Diane told me I should talk to him; to explain what I was doing and why, and somehow he would understand. Well, I DID that, sort of. I would let him know verbally when it was "pill time" so that he knew that those times were separate from other times. He learned that if it WASN'T pill time, that I was "ok". He stopped running from me after that. I think from this, he learned to trust me. I started talking to him all the time. He became my "little buddy". He started really getting attached to me; more to me than to Diane (he was always "her cat" before that). He really did perk up when I got home from work. He almost always nuzzled my leg when I'd get some treats for him (roast beef or the like), and he only did it to Diane once.

It's been almost 2 years since I found this board. The first thing I can remember about it was Acinny losing her Rainbow, and how much love and support everyone showed her. I was at work, with tears streaming down my face, for someone I had never met, who had lost a cat I had never seen. But all that caring and sympathy has touched our lives, and changed our lives forever. Soon after that, I found out about making your own web pages (thanks, lv) and it made me look inside myself to answer the question, "what the heck could I build a web site about anyway?" The more questions I answered on the BB about diabetes those first few weeks, I realized how much animal medical knowledge/experience we had, and could share with others. I hope that somehow Biffy's problems, treatments, successes and failures will help others with their own kitties problems.

Biffy was a fighter, and a lover, too. I know he loved me, more than any other cat I've ever known. I'll miss him forever.

Biffy's Diary, Part 3

Biffy's Diary, Part 2