What kind of person are you?

The Notorious KAT is not what one would term a proper cat, she doesn't even really have a name. She wakes me up in the middle of the night, she hisses at anyone who's not me, she bites me. People usually take the Minnesota nice cop out and say she is a really beautiful cat. If she wasn't so cute she wouldn't still be here. I like to say she has a lot of personality. She's always in my face or on my lap or meowing to get noticed. Never very athletic, she's always been a tad overweight which eliminates the problem of her jumping on the countertops. So how did I not notice she'd lost twenty percent of her body weight in a year?

I remember thinking a while ago she looked a little thinner which I thought was a good thing, she was jumping around a bit more. When I got back from vacation she wasn't eating much but I chalked that up to the stress of my being gone. She gets very stressed when I'm not around. But earlier this week I realized she felt bony and her hair usually shedding in great quantities was coming out in larger clumps. And I couldn't explain things away any longer.

Yesterday I took her to the Peruvian vet who immediately said she has a large, malignant, intestinal tumor. We talked for a while about diagnosis, treatment options, best and worst case scenarios. The only way to know for sure how bad it is would be to do an exploratory surgery and if the mass can be removed, remove it. So am I the kind of person who will drop a couple thousand dollars on an operation for her cat? I have always thought no I am not that person. But with the cat sitting right there how can you say no? A few of my coworkers are that person who has dropped big money on a pet. But I've always thought I would not do that, we're talking about a cat. It's not even my cat, it's my ex-husband's cat and he wouldn't take it when he left so the cat and I were stuck with each other. Maybe spending the money assuages the guilt, maybe it's just too hard to say no, maybe people are just nuts. You don't really know what kind of person you are until you have to make the decision. She's not the best cat but she's my cat.

Update:The tumors were too numerous to be removed and the cat was put to sleep 7/9/07