Goodbye, My Beautiful Feral Misfit; the Neighborhood Supervisor 🌈 🌉

Jun 29

Today I had to do the one thing every pet owner dreads.

I had to say goodbye to Harlie.

My little feral psychopath.

I adopted Harlie as an itty-bitty kitten from Bridges through the Everett Humane Society. She was tiny, spicy, and absolutely unimpressed with humans from day one.

To make matters worse, whoever spayed her royally fucked it up. She ended up with Ovary Remnant Syndrome because they left ovarian tissue behind. Before she even had a chance to grow up, she was headed back into surgery.

It kind of set the tone for her life.

She wasn't mean.

She just had boundaries.

Very...very...firm boundaries.

She wasn't a lap cat.

Well...

She wasn't my lap cat.

She'd look at me like I had personally offended her by existing.

Mike's lap, though?

That was luxury seating.

Apparently, I was just the woman who handled payroll.

Unless...

It was dinner time.

Then suddenly I'd hear...

"MAAAAAAAA!! THE MEATLOAF!!"

Miraculously, I became her favorite person on Earth.

For approximately thirty seconds.

The rest of the day she'd much rather be outside.

Flower beds.

Neighbors' yards.

Climbing fences.

Patrolling the neighborhood like she was collecting HOA violations.

She had a GPS collar because there wasn't a chance in hell I was trusting Harlie to stay where she belonged.

I'd pull up the app and there she'd be...

Usually wandering around the golf course like she owned the place.

Then, last October...

Everything changed.

A little bump appeared on her chin.

It seemed so insignificant.

It wasn't.

That tiny bump turned into biopsies.

Then surgery.

Then radiation.

Then electrochemotherapy.

Then countless trips to Washington State University.

Medications.

Cones.

Cleaning food out of wounds.

Hope.

Then more hope.

Then watching that hope slowly disappear.

The diagnosis was a spindle cell sarcoma.

I'd never even heard of one.

What I learned is that these tumors are absolute bastards.

Unlike cancers that grow in one nice little lump, spindle cell sarcomas send microscopic little tentacles deep into the surrounding tissue. Surgeons can remove everything they can see, but tiny cancer cells often remain because they've already worked their way into healthy tissue.

Imagine pulling a dandelion.

You get the flower.

Maybe even most of the root.

Then a few weeks later...

There it is again.

Only bigger.

Meaner.

Harder to kill.

Because Harlie's tumor was on her chin, there simply wasn't enough extra tissue to take huge surgical margins without destroying her ability to eat normally. That's why surgery was followed by radiation—to destroy the microscopic cells nobody could see.

When that wasn't enough, we tried electrochemotherapy, where electrical pulses temporarily open the cancer cells so chemotherapy can get inside them more effectively.

We didn't stop at Plan A.

Or Plan B.

Or Plan C.

We threw everything modern veterinary medicine had at this stupid tumor.

Surgery.

Radiation.

Electrochemotherapy.

Specialists.

Follow-up appointments.

Love.

Hope.

Everything.

It came back anyway.

With a fury.

Sometimes cancer doesn't care how hard you're willing to fight.

The strangest part of this whole journey wasn't the cancer.

It was Harlie.

The cat who spent years insisting she'd rather be outside than spend five minutes in the house suddenly decided...

"This indoor thing isn't so bad."

She never asked to go outside again.

Not once.

Instead she curled up inside.

Accepted pets.

Hung out with us.

Well...

Mostly Mike.

She still snubbed my lap whenever possible.

Some things are non-negotiable.

But for eight extra months, I got a version of Harlie I'd never known.

A softer version.

A slower version.

A version that let us love her in ways she never had before.

For that...

I'll always be thankful.

Today the tumor won.

It had grown so large she couldn't eat.

She couldn't drink.

She couldn't even meow.

There wasn't another treatment left.

There wasn't another miracle waiting around the corner.

There was only one last gift I could give her.

Peace.

So today...

I carried the pain she couldn't anymore.

Then tonight my brain starts doing what brains do.

Connecting dots.

Maybe dots that don't belong together.

Maybe they do.

We've only lived here about four years.

In those four years we've lost...

ESPN.

Tazi.

Raider.

Spider.

And now Harlie.

Five.

Five beloved animals.

Every single one...

Cancer.

That's...nuts.

I don't know if it's bad luck.

I don't know if it's pesticides from the surrounding farms.

I don't know if it's something from Hanford.

I don't know if it's chemicals used on the golf course that's literally one street away from our house—the same golf course Harlie spent half her life wandering around.

I've read studies about pesticide exposure and increased cancer risks in certain settings. I've also read that there simply isn't enough evidence to say living near a golf course causes cancer in pets.

So no...

I'm not saying I know.

Because I don't. (but I kinda do)

But after losing five animals to cancer in four years...

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't asking questions.

Questions I'll probably never have answers to.

Tomorrow Moxie and Tula turn three years old.

Three.

What should feel like a happy day feels a little different tonight.

Our tribe just got smaller.

Now it's Moxie.

Tula.