Final Bailey Update
TW: Pet death
On Thursday, we’ll be taking Bailey in to the vet to be euthanized.
I’ve been force-feeding her for a couple weeks now, but while that has slowed her weight loss, she still hasn’t gotten the point of wanting to eat on her own again. And unfortunately the point where I need to prioritize the non-furred people in my family is approaching.
My sister’s surgery for her brain tumor has been moved up to mid-January, so I’ll be flying back home in a couple weeks to see her before the surgery. Since the tumor is near the motor centers of the brain, some degree of paralysis is a serious possibility following the surgery, and it’s possible I may need to remain for many weeks to help care for her while she goes through rehab. We just don’t know what she will require at this point, but if I’m gone, then no one else would have the availability to feed Bailey every three hours if she hadn’t improved to the point of being self-sustaining by then.
So, knowing our options were decreasing, I took Bailey in on Saturday to be weighed and checked out again, and to talk to the vet about our options. The vet did another exam and felt something in Bailey’s abdomen that she hadn’t felt three weeks ago. She did a quick ultrasound (thankfully without charging us, since we seriously cannot afford to spend any more money on this) and found a mass of some sort.
Without further diagnosis, there’s no telling what sort of mass it is, or what organs it’s affecting, but it’s growing rapidly enough that in three weeks’ time, it went from undetectable to detectable during abdominal palpation. Admittedly, some of that may be because Bailey has lost even more body mass over those three weeks, but still...
Long story short, it’s time to make the call. Even if we could afford diagnostics, those diagnostics would probably simply tell us that her only chance lies in costly treatments, and those treatments would be traumatic enough that this would become a quality of life issue. And I’m not going to be here to give her the care she needs in any event.
We decided, since she’s not critical, we’d take her home, keep her fed for a few more days, and say our goodbyes. She doesn’t really resist the force-feeding. In fact sometimes when I pick her up to take her to our feeding spot, she purrs and has even gotten into the habit of waiting for me in that area when I wake up in the morning, so she’s not miserable. She’s just not getting any better, and our resources for helping her--if she can even be helped--are depleted.
As it is, I won’t even get to be with her when they put her to sleep. The method they use if you’re present is different, and more costly. It would be $230 to be with her, as opposed to $99 if I walk away and leave her behind.
We can’t afford that, especially since we’ll be going into significant debt to get me back to my family in a couple weeks, and especially since this whole issue with Bailey has already cost us $1500, only ~$500 of which I’ve managed to recoup in donations.
So, for the last time, here is my Ko-Fi link, if anyone would like to help whittle down the bill on this ordeal. I wish we could have saved her.
Happy New Year, everyone.














