May 11

On May 11, 2021, I learned that my cat Julie has cancer. 

I’m writing this the next day, on May 12. The news is 19 hours old. 19 hours can feel like a long time. 

Yesterday, May 11, I brought Julie to a veterinary appointment. She was seeing a specialist for her teeth. She’s over 14 years old. She’s got bad teeth. I’ve seen it before in other cats. I was concerned, but I thought it was just that — bad teeth. 

Cats do not know how to say “ahhh,” so feline dental work requires anesthesia. The feline oral surgeon gave me an estimate of what the procedure would cost. He provided both a low-end number and a high-end number.

When I woke up on May 11, I was thinking about the high-end number. 

The cynic in my said: You’re the kind of guy who takes his cat to an oral surgeon. Of course they are going to upsell you. For the past few days, I’d been joking that Julie’s teeth were one of the most expensive things in the house. “So much for another vacation this summer,” I said to my wife. 

Julie started drooling a few weeks ago. 

Again, I’ve had cats all my life — and while this concerned me, it did not make me think about any worst-case scenarios. As a boy, I had a cat named Simon who drooled almost his entire life. He started drooling at about age two. He lived to 20. 

But it was clear that her mouth bothered her. She was still eating and drinking without any apparent discomfort. But the drool, combined with oversalivation, worried me. Her regular vet suggested a dental cleaning, at which he suggested she would have a few teeth removed. 

That’s what I was prepared for on May 11. Julie, less a few teeth. My wallet, less a few grand. 

How quaint. 

I dropped her off at seven in the morning. I’d be back to pick her up at five that night. She was on an empty stomach due to the anesthetic. I smiled about how grumpy she would be with me when I picked her up that night. 

At ten, the vet called to give me a late rundown of what the procedure entailed. “Uh-huh,” I said a few times. 

At eleven, the vet called to say they were putting her under anesthetic. 

At noon, the vet called again. I was in court at the time and could not answer. The vet left a voicemail. I still have not listened to it yet. 

I called them back at twelve-fifteen. 

“I can’t perform the procedure as we planned,” the vet said. “I found a mass on Julie’s mandible. Instead I am performing a biopsy on the mass.”

“A mass?”

I knew what he meant, of course. 

“A mass.”

“What kind of mass?”

“I cannot say for sure. That is why we do the biopsy. But I believe it is cancer.”

“When will you know?”

“The biopsy takes a few days.”

“But from your experience, you think it is cancer?”

“Yes.”

He elaborated on the reasons for his concern — the size of the mass, its problematic location, its potential to metastasize. And I asked what anyone would. 

“Is it terminal?”

“Yes.”

I did not respond to that. He occupied the silence with the obligatory caveats that he was not certain, and that we would get the biopsy results in 3-5 days. 

I asked about treatment options, of course. But he indicated I should discuss that subject with the oncologist after the results came back. 

Some background: this conversation occurred while I was in court, right in between hearings. Moments after it ended, a judge called my name to begin the next matter. As the judge spoke, I stared at my notepad, where I had absentmindedly written a few words. I hadn’t even realized I wrote them: 

No procedure today. 

Biopsy. 

Cancer.