Briar Rose in Memoriam

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart," Winnie the Pooh. I don't think there are any words that could better summarize my feelings toward the loss of my beloved cat Briar Rose. I know this is probably not a normal "triathlon" blog post, but it's my blog and I can do what I want. It's kind of cathartic. It's just a reminder that we are human and we all have love and lives outside of triathlon. Allow yourself grace and room to just feel.

I adopted Briar Rose January 8, 2016 at the start of my second semester of medical school. She had just arrived on the adoption floor at PetSmart that very day that I was looking for a friend from Clark County Animal Control. She had not even had enough time there to be named. I was very broken already when I adopted this nameless, tiny, 4-year-old Siamese cat. I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis less than a year earlier, I had c. diff multiple times my first semester. And a professor broke my foot in class just a few months prior. Basically I was sick and in pain and I needed some love.

As soon as I brought my new, little kitty home and sat on the couch, she curled up in my lap and purred- an unusual occurrence for a new, pet. It usually takes days, weeks, or even months for a fur friend to acclimate to a new environment. But she seemed to know right away that I was hers and she was mine. The next day, we decided on the name Briar Rose for my little princess. My beautiful Sleeping Beauty.

Briar followed me around the house everywhere I went. If I was sitting, she was in my lap. If I was sleeping or lying down, she would curl up in the crook of my arm with her sweet little head resting on me. And if I was in the bathroom sick, well, there she was, purring away to try to make me better.

The guilt part of the emotional processing is so real and strong. From a logical viewpoint, I know that we did everything we could for Briar Rose, but from the emotional viewpoint, I can't help but second-guess every decision. How is it that she saved me, but I couldn't do the same for her?

I noticed in the first year or so that Briar would randomly lose and then regain weight. She was a pretty small cat, so the weight loss was noticeable when there's not much there to begin with. I took her to the vet a few times for labs and weigh-ins, but everything was normal. There were zero signs or symptoms other than randomly losing weight. The vet mentioned Inflammatory Bowel Disease as a possible differential diagnosis, but we had no information to really follow up on it. For cats, a confirmatory diagnosis would require invasive surgery, and why do that from a financial or quality of life standpoint for a wild goose chase? Those intrusive thoughts keep coming back: "you knew all along." And deep down, I just did. One of Briar's vets told me that even if we had known sooner, it wouldn't have changed our treatment course. But, still, what if we had?

So we continued on the next several years, getting a Master's Degree after leaving medical school
with my cat by my side the whole time. She knew when I wasn't feeling well and even started alerting me when I had future c. diff infections. I definitely told one of my doctors that "my cat said the c. diff is back." He ordered a test, despite looking at me as if I were crazy. The cat was right. She was always right.

Two days after my dog, Raja, had an emergency surgery from an obstruction, I noticed Briar was sitting on the floor, just kind of staring off into space. That obviously was not normal for her, but didn't alarm me as much as I guess it should have. I thought she was sad about her doggy sister or just had a little bug. I took her to the vet first thing in the morning and dropped her off for an urgent appointment. Imagine my surprise when they called and told me to come pick up my cat for acute kidney failure and rush her to the kitty hospital. She was there for 3 nights and we didn't know if she was going to make it. She pulled through and we took her home, with the plan to do subcutaneous fluids every night for the next two weeks. The vet did say that she had inflammation of her intestine. It could be cancer or it could be IBD (there it was again). Did that cause the kidney disease? Did we miss something? What could you even do if you had that diagnosis definitively? Not much.

Briar Rose was in excellent health for quite some time when we finished her fluid regimen, tapering the frequency with the increase in fighting (assuming that was the sign for improvement haha). And she had no remaining kidney symptoms for probably close to a year. No GI symptoms. So we carried on, doing her regular checkups and asking to pay careful attention to kidneys. Of course, that eventually lead us to the dreaded Chronic Kidney Disease, which we knew would come eventually. So we switched to the kidney diet and everything was stable again. She weighed slightly less, but she otherwise was healthy. And then we started getting to the dehydrated stages of the vet visits, doing fluids, and some more frequent visits, but otherwise she was good again.

Briar truly saved me last year. I can't go into details, but I almost lost my life last year. I was so sick, couldn't get my medication because of insurance issues, and that was the last line of medication available. I had no where to go. I had lost hope at the possibility of getting better. If you haven't experienced this type of pain, it is impossible to even imagine. Unrelenting abdominal pain that was so bad that if you didn't have that IBD diagnosis already, you would be calling an ambulance. But this was nonstop, unrelenting pain that had me frequently curled up in the fetal position. The vomiting and bloody diarrhea was just miserable. I was so sick that I couldn't shower after vomiting in the shower, so I was just gross. I couldn't walk my dogs. I could barely even clean the vomit off of the living room floor. It was such a tortured existence that I was very close to ending it. But there was my cat. Right next to me, purring away. And what would that do to her? Where would she be? Briar Rose is literally the reason I'm still here. She's the reason I had to fight. She saved me. Her little purr box was going constantly.

A few months ago I noticed that she was not snuggling as much as normal. I didn't think much of it at first, because she is a cat, but then I realized that this was not normal for her. Back to the vet we went. I felt a little stupid for saying "my cat needs to be seen because she's not snuggly." Most people would think, "um, yeah, she's a cat." But my vet understood. It, unfortunately, turned out to be some dehydration and more weight loss. We got her back on some fluids, followed back up, and I thought she was improving. So I went to my race in Lake Placid. Now there's more guilt. What if I hadn't gone? Would she have declined after I got home? But she was doing better! But was it my fault? The thoughts that just come with the whole process are terrible.

And then we had the first bigger sign that something was very wrong- high WBCs. Maybe an infection? She seemed to be improving, but not much. More fluids. And still high WBCs. Switch antibiotic. And then declining some more. But where do we go? There were some signs of improvement and some signs of decline. It was up and down every day. The eating became reduced day-by-day. She would eat more on days that I cooked her special meals- chicken, steak, pork, until she didn't. It was too much for her. She fought and fought, but these two diseases were just too much for her little body.

I miss her every day. I know the pain will ease with time. But right now, when I come home, I'm still half-expecting to see her sitting by the door waiting for me. When the vacuum comes by my room, out of the corner of the eye, I think it's the little cat running by. There are no more purrs. No more chasing ping pong balls at 3 AM. But I have a lifetime of memories. I'll love you forever, Briar Rose. There is no more pain at the rainbow bridge. And all the little steak you can want.