Calling All July Birthdays 🎆!Let's All Wish Liza @lizark A Happy Birthday July 30th!

[Lisa07]

I hope I’m not too late to your party Liza.
Happy Belated Birthday @lizak!

[lizak]

Thanks @Lisa07 so much

[JazzyS]

I wasn’t sure where to post this…we miss you @CATMANCAM wishing you a very happy birthday . Hope you are well​:people_hugging:. Wanted to make sure you saw this when you woke up. Wishing you a wonderful day and year to come. Much love Cam

[CATMANCAM]

Thank you so much Jasmine

I had to say goodnye to Prince (one of my cats, but also my best friend and soulmate) on Wednesday, so I am heart-broken to say the least. It’s been a rough 2.5 months that has ended in the most unexpected way.

I’m still sober from drugs and alcohol. Surprisingly also haven’t turned to my ED related behaviours since Monday either, I usually never struggle to eat.

I have 5 long (for me) car journeys to make today, to my doctors and back, to therapy, to the second veterinary referral hospital Prince had treatment with (to pay the rest of what I owe them in cash), and then from there to home. I am hoping the radio is kind to me and doesn’t play many songs that make me bawl my eyes out, because I cannot afford to lose my vision for single second on high speed, heavy traffic roads.

I appreciate your message more than you could know. It means a lot that you remember me and still care enough to make a post to wish me a happy birthday.

If you celebrate, enjoy your 4th of July celebrations

Much love.

[JazzyS]

Of course you are loved and remembered. We all miss you so very much.

I am so very sorry for your loss. RIP sweet Prince.

Wishing you luck with the car journey’s and appointments today. Maybe listen to podcasts or if you have your own recorded music then just happy songs. The radio can be very temperamental and I know when I don’t want to cry is when all I hear are sad songs. Hope you are able to do something special for yourself as well.

I just read on the miss you thread that you are planning to be on the forum more. This makes my heart very happy.

I haven’t celebrated the 4th in a while. Today will be a me day. My mom’s birthday as well today and she is off having fun so I can totally be selfish and just make the day about me.

Much love right back at you .

[Dazercat]

Oh no
Cam I’m so sorry to read about Prince. How terribly heartbreaking. I was going to wish you a happy birthday but there is probably nothing happy about it right now. Oh man that really sucks. I lost my Maverick a couple of weeks after my birthday. We were basically trying to get him over his cancer for my birthday. Sucked. We tried and tried. But he just couldn’t beat it. He was only ten Total bag over the head for us. It’s been almost six moths and it still hurts. I’m so proud of you for not letting this horrible thing ruin your sobriety or ED behaviors.

I’ll always remember Prince. I still use him as an example when anyone I know has a pet that needs a tooth or multiple teeth pulled. He is thought of all the way across the pond to the west coast. And will be missed.

Hang in there my friend. Keep us posted. Here if you need to let loose my cat friend dad.
Big hugs to you

[Alisa]

Have a good year @CATMANCAM
It sounds like it’s starting out very, very rough, but hopefully things will even out, you will always miss Prince so much, I know, I lost my kitty cat almost a year ago. It hurts and it hurts, and it hurts.
Wishing you a good year ahead.
I hope that on your birthday that all your driving that you had to do was not too too stressful and that you were able to everything you needed to do.

[CATMANCAM]

Oh Eric, I’m so sorry about your loss of Maverick

Without telling the whole long story, after 2.5 months of diagnostic tests, it was eventually a diagnosis of cancer that led to me having to say goodbye to Prince too, it’s such a fkin cruel disease. He would have turned 13 next month, so I was also hoping to have a good few more years with him before all of this. He was only supposed to be having the rest of his teeth removed (it sounds like you remember, but back in 2020, he was supposed to be having them all removed, but they broke his jaw, so since then he still had his 4 canines and his little lower front ones between the canines. It means so much that you still remember this, 5 years on ), but once the specialist dentist had done the surgery, she called me whilst he was still under to say she really didn’t think the redness on his upper left gum was related to the teeth, so she asked if I wanted to consent to a biopsy (of course I said yes), then when she called with the results, 2 weeks later, she said it had came back as sarcoma, and that because of his other symptoms of excessively chewing and pawing at his face/mouth every time after eating or drinking anything, refusing to eat any cat food (I had him eating cooked chicken breast in small pieces, and some cat milk), and the amount of weight he’d lost, it was extremely likely that he also had nerve sheath tumors in his mouth/face/jaw. She said she had spoken to their Oncologist team and they’d said there really was nothing they could do, she said that if he would take medication (he refused no matter how/what I tried), that she could have prescribed palliative meds and he might have had another two months, but because he wouldn’t let me administer anything, then it was time to say goodbye.

I lost my mum at the age of 8 to it too, she was only 35. It really can strike at any age.

Hugs back

[CATMANCAM]

Thank you

I’m so sorry you lost yours too

The driving was actually very stressful, because there were major road closures etc, but it was also a very good distraction, so overall it was a good thing, and I did do everything I needed to do.

[CATMANCAM]

Thank you

I hope you had a good day to yourself in the end

Annoyingly, my car doesn’t have in-built Sat Nav, so I have to use Google Maps on my phone, so can’t play anything on Spotify or Audible at the same time. The radio was actually very kind to me though thankfully, despite having to drive for way longer than I expected, it only made me start crying 3 times, and I managed to get myself together pretty quickly each time. I think it helped that I managed to bawl my eyes out in front of my therapist for the first time ever (I’ve been seeing him for a total of two years and have never been able to cry even when my eyes have filled with tears and I’ve had a lump in my throat), so I was able to let some of the emotions out. He was genuinely so sorry to hear about Prince, and that meant a lot.

[Dazercat]

Thank you
It was cancer for Maverick too.
Lymphoma and it was also about 2 and a half months. We went through all that too. We were even going to do the feeding tube. The thing we said we’d never ever do. But they talked us into it. But they couldn’t do that either because he developed a heart thingy. I think he had fluid in his heart. It was brutal. It’s so hard. He was my morning coffee buddy. And he was only 10

I still have 3 cats now. Seems like none without him. Oh and Benson. But he was my morning coffee guy on the catio. On my lap. 6 months later and I’m just starting to go out on the catio again. I couldn’t and still can believe how much it hurts. So I did some googling.

When we are caretakers for animals, it multiplies the intensity just before they die. It’s like your whole life has been shredded.” I don’t think that’s the exact article but I did find some of them helpful.

And when they are sick near the end we spend all our waking hours trying and guessing what to do best. It’s just so hard.

I’m sorry you have to go through all this. Anytime you want to vent or cry I would be happy to listen or read you. Share it here or wherever. Don’t let it stay bottled up. That’s not good for anyone.

Hopefully Mavy is up there showing Prince around and they are keeping an eye on us together.

Big hugs to you again my cat dad friend.

[Mno]

I missed you Birthday but now I read the story of Prince… So sorry for how it all went down friend. Cancer is a b*tch yes. It’s good to see you despite the circumstances friend. Hang in there. Much love. X

[Tragicfarinelli]

So sorry about Prince my friend

Happy belated birthday

[JazzyS]

Much love Cam. Sorry the drive was stressful but I’m happy to hear your therapy session went well.. seems you were able to open up and hopefully that emotional release felt good

[ddawson84]

My sobriety birthday is July 1 2023. 2 years sober

[JazzyS]

2 years + is amazing … Keep up the great work

[ddawson84]

Thank you