A year already

Some people may not understand this type of a post, but for a number of my friends that are animal lovers they will know exactly what I am talking about and even know probably what I am feeling today. On this day last year we said good bye to our beloved Jessica. She was given to us by one of Seth's neighbors as a housewarming present for our first apartment. She was also our first pet together. She was tough love, but when she gave you love it was real. I want to say that her and I had an understanding. To me there was something special about her that I hate to say it made her a favorite of mine. Even after we brought home a second cat a year later I know I gravitated toward Jessica more.
Last September she started to act a little different and started to have accidents. We thought she was mad at the thought of another child coming into the house, but she was not like that with Aiden so that couldn't be the problem. Then I noticed that she was losing weight  and not eating right. I brought her to the vet and they thought maybe she ate something that had irritated her stomach and it needed to heal. they gave me meds, but that did not work. I brought her back and told her that she was also not walking right. She had a drunken stagger. They checked her reflexes and they were not what they were suppose to be. Blood work reviewed that she a had sky high white bloodcell count and to me that meant she had cancer. The doctor didn't want to jump to that conclusion, but I knew it already. After x-rays were done, they found a mass in her abdomen that they were not sure if it was something she ate to cause an infection or what. We were sent to a better hospital where they looked over the scans, did some more tests and after a biopsy they revealed that she did in fact have enlarged lymph nodes and they confirmed that she did have Feline Lymphoma. Seth and I went to get her that night to bring her home for one last time to say good- bye. She slept in our room because at this point she could not walk. We were told that at her present condition that she was mentally already gone and that she did not know where she was. they had hydrated her to get her through the night where we would then bring her back to put her at rest. It was one of the longest nights and it was also one of the hardest things I've had to do thus far. She was a part of the family. She was my baby. The thing that gets to me the most was the fact that from the time that I noticed a change in her to the time she left us was only 5wks. She had a very aggressive form of lymphoma and I was not prepared for this to happen. She was only 8yrs old and it was all too fast. I had 10 days from the time I brought her to the vet to process that she was very sick and not coming back home with us as she was. the second hardest day was picking her back up from the vet....in a little brown box. As of right now she sits in our living room on my hope chest. I have not opened up the box and I don't know if I ever will. I know that she was just a cat, but to me pets are more then just pets. They are family members. So today I will remember all the good times that we had with her.

Jessica

July 2002- Oct. 10, 2010

Miss you lots.