Last November our very good friend SG was in the process of moving to California. She asked us if we would be willing to adopt her cat Ginger. We, being pet lovers and missing having them in our lives, said yes. For as long as I've known SG Ginger was her pet. So it wasn't like we were getting a cat whose disposition I didn't know.

In February, we adopted Lady Gray, aka Little G or Monkey. Around that time Ginger started to seem a bit off. We thought it was depression and that she was having a difficult time adjusting to Lady Gray's kitten personality. But it didn't go away. At the end of August we became quite worried when her eating and weight had significantly decreased. We took her to the vet, they suggested a very expensive test that they couldn't perform. We went to another vet and said that test wouldn't really prove anything. So they ran blood work. Before the results of the blood work up came back the vet suspected it could be pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) and should subside on it's own. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Ginger had pancreatic cancer.

Due to the nature of pancreatic cancer the only treatment available is palliative care. Since the end of August Ginger's been on anti-nausea and appetite stimulant pills. While she wasn't gaining weight, she didn't seem to be losing any, and she was able to keep her food down.

These past couple months have been an emotional roller coaster; deep down knowing that she wouldn't get better, but being given signs that she might were difficult to deal with.

This past Sunday it became clear that the end was closer than Niels or I wanted: her back legs began giving her issues, she was having difficulty using the litter box and couldn't hold her head up enough to drink water out of her bowl without getting her neck all wet. We didn't want to overreact, on Monday Niels called to make the "appointment" which gave us time in case we were wrong.

Unfortunately we weren't.

Today we took Ginger in and prior to the procedure the vet did an exam and her cancerous growth had grown to a size where you could feel it. We talked about options (Ginger could be placed on steroids) but after talking about the issues she's been having the vet agreed with us that it was Ginger's time to go.