Calypso is an 11-year-old rescue cat battling cancer. For seven or more years of her life, she survived outdoors, left to fend for herself after the very people who were supposed to love and protect her failed her.

But today, I don’t want to focus on the hardships she’s endured or the diagnosis she carries. Today, I want to celebrate Calypso for who she is, not what she’s been through. Because she is so much more than the sum of her experiences, her suffering, or her illness.

Calypso is a beautiful soul with a sweet, sassy personality and a remarkable spirit. She loves playing with crinkle balls, finding the softest, coziest spots to curl up and relax, and soaking up all the affection she’s willing to receive. Head scratches and chin rubs are among her favorites, and despite everything she’s experienced, she is very much a people-loving cat.

She’s still figuring out how she feels about the resident cats, but she’s slowly becoming more tolerant of their presence. She has the cutest little meow, one that makes it almost impossible not to smile. And her beautiful, long calico coat, once riddled with painful mats, is finally getting the chance to grow back healthy and free. I can only imagine how magnificent she’ll look once all those little patches have filled in. Although, if you ask me, she’s already absolutely beautiful.

Every single day we get with Calypso is a gift, and we don’t take a moment of it for granted.

Despite her cancer diagnosis, Calypso continues to show us that she still has a desire to experience life. She enthusiastically eats her meals, drinks from her water fountain, and uses her litter box regularly. She seeks out companionship, enjoys affection, and continues to explore the comforts of a home that she should have known all along.

Perhaps one of the most heartwarming changes we’ve seen since beginning palliative care is her renewed interest in playing.

Her little bursts of play may only last a few minutes, but those moments mean so much. With her condition, it’s bittersweet to watch her play, knowing what she’s fighting. Yet, according to her veterinarian, these moments of activity are encouraging. They suggest that her current treatment is helping improve her comfort and quality of life.

And that’s what matters most to us right now.
We know that palliative care cannot promise us more time, but it can help us make the time she has as comfortable, fulfilling, and meaningful as possible. Whether that means a few minutes chasing a crinkle ball, a peaceful afternoon curled up somewhere soft, or simply enjoying a good meal and some gentle chin scratches, Calypso deserves every bit of happiness we can give her.

I don’t want Calypso to be remembered solely as the senior rescue cat who spent years surviving outside, or as the cat who was diagnosed with cancer.
I want her to be remembered for her sassiness, her sweetness, her adorable little meow, and her love of life’s simplest pleasures.

I want her to be remembered for her determination, her resilience, and the incredible courage it must have taken to trust people again after being let down for so long.

Most importantly, I want her to be remembered as an individual. A living, feeling being with her own personality, preferences, quirks, and a heart capable of so much love.

Calypso may have spent years without the love and security she deserved, but those years do not define her. Neither does her cancer. Her story is so much bigger than the suffering she’s survived.

It has been an incredible privilege to get to know this beautiful girl, to earn her trust, and to give her the love, comfort, dignity, and care she should have had from the very beginning.

I don’t know how much time we’ll be fortunate enough to share with Calypso, but I do know that every day she is here, she will be loved, valued, and celebrated for exactly who she is.

So please, enjoy these pictures of our beautiful Calypso. Celebrate her with us, not because of what she’s survived or what she’s fighting, but simply because her life matters.

She’s a sweet, sassy old girl with a beautiful soul, a remarkable will to live, and a heart brave enough to trust again.

And that is something worth celebrating. ❤️🐾

Every life matters. Every single one.
— Save the Cats Rescue -NH

My best friend passed away from kidney failure while i was at work, from the home camera i saw he was calling for me during his final hours, i wasn't there when he needed me most, and this guilt will stay with me forever

I took him to the vet that morning. Kidney disease. They gave me medications and special diet. I gave him his pills before i left for work. I kissed his head and told him I'd be back soon.

At work, i kept checking the camera on my phone. I wanted to see if he ate his food. But he wasn't at his bowl. He was lying by the front door. Still. Not moving.

I called my boss. No answer.i kept watching. He never moved. When i got home, he was still there. Cold. Gone. He died alone waiting for me while i was at work. I will never forgive myself, i keep thinking about him staring at that door, waiting for me, and i can't breathe. I don't want to be here without him. I don't want to feel the guilt anymore. I just want to be where he is.

Hi everyone. My kitty Poppy is 17 (18 in January!) And she seems to have some pretty significant plaque and gingivitis on her back teeth shown at her last checkup. The vet mentioned she needs a dental cleaning, but I keep getting conflicting advice from different vets at the clinic. (They are all amazing and look after my cats incredibly well)

Poppy is looked at by the vets or nurses frequently (Solensia injection monthly, blood tests, checkups etc) So they all know her very well. But some vets say yes she needs dental, some say no she is too old. Poppy has stage 2 kidney disease as well as HCM. I had one vet tell me they did a dental for a kitty with HCM and kitty didn’t make it, another vet said they would take all those things into account while Poppy is under, so to go ahead with it.

12 years ago my kitty had dental and she didn’t make it home (The vets said she was possibly 16) and that really affected me. And I don’t want that to happen with Poppy, but I also want to give her the best care possible.

I feel guilty for not doing this for Poppy, but if she were to not make it through this procedure soley based on a decision I made I would not be able to live with myself. I know cats can hide pain very well, she’s still eating and drinking fine and she’s doing very well for her age and ailments. I just don’t know what to do and if I am a bad owner for not wanting to go through with the dental.

i lost my sweet Baby Nora on 9/15. we had 11 beautiful years together. she was the baby of a feral cat, i got her in college. she was the runt and when i went to see the kittens she said right by my feet and just stared at me. she was my best friend and we were girls together. she was so beautiful and so loving and so so tiny her whole life. i had a lot of mental health and substance issues in my younger years, and she loved me all the same. i’ve worked on myself a lot, ive been sober for almost 5 years, and she is a huge reason i am still here last summer she started getting very sick, throwing up and having accidents and losing weight, barely eating. i had her to the vet 3 times, and they weren’t too concerned. her bloodwork was fine. she had some tummy issues here and there, never lasting more than a day or two. this august they got worse. she got so skinny and i didn’t realize it. every day we did everything together. she sat on my lap while i had my morning coffee, she sat near me while i cooked (and screamed to smell everything i made even if she gagged) slept with me, and got me through my own health issues that took a few years to figure out. the last month of her life she was incontinent. we took her to the vet and they said it was either very advanced IBD or cancer. we tried different food, medicine, all of it. one day she just cried this cry i had never heard before and i knew it was time. i took her to the vet and he agreed. at this point the vets were suspecting GI Lymphoma. i couldn’t afford more than what we were already doing. i didn’t want to lose my baby girl, but i couldn’t stand the thought of her being in pain. any amount of discomfort was the last thing she ever deserved. she was the best girl. i have cried every day since losing her. i feel like i can’t breathe. i wish i had what she needed to not feel so crappy. i offered for her many times if she’d like to live forever but obviously they unfortunately do not. my dad said from the first time he saw us that we knew each other from lives before. he said that i was the cat last time and she was the human, and it was kind of like that. she made such funny faces especially if she disapproved of something. what she did love was snuggles, laying in the sun, and coffee ice cream. and her last day was filled with that. we laid on the floor, i did a lot of crying. her little foot steps are still dug into the carpet on the stairs. i find a stray nail or whisker here and there, but am scared of the day when i don’t find her hair anymore. she loved sitting in my laundry basket but i can’t bring myself to wash the hair off the clothes she used to nest in. i’m such a mess. i love her so much. i wonder if she likes sitting in the stars and clouds. i hope she found our grandpa, he loved her so much too

We met Miranda at a shelter in January of 2017 (she was approximately 4) after we had just moved in together. As soon as we came into the room I did a wall sit and she immediately ran over and sat on my lap—I’ve been her person ever since. She has lived in 4 places with us, survived a 1000 mile road trip/move, and been with us for so much of our relationship and life achievements. The last year we were having to give her insulin w/ every meal and she was slowly losing weight and had a lot of complications because of it. She was such a loving and sweet cat. My true soul cat.

Honey is now 19 and a half and her arthritis has been getting noticeably worse but she refuses to use the foam ramps and will jump around them instead. She takes pills to help her arthritis and unfortunately the vet says she’s not a good candidate for injections because of her other health issues. I want to get her some kind heated blanket/pillow before it gets cold. She has a little radiator we put by her for later fall/winter but I’d like her to have some type of heat she can lay on.

IT took 21yrs for you to leave me I just hoped form all the bad and the good u enjoyed every year you were with me

I've lost all of the 2005 pics since I've been lost tht phone but the oldest pic in my phone is 2015 when I started high-school so she's still a super senior by those standards I don't really remember the exact day I got her gifted to me but I was 5yrs old so I wasn't the best pet owner in my early years she ran way shortly after but 2weeks later she was under the porch crying and she never left my side since im ultimately destroyed im currently doing a gofundme to better my situation to take care of her but now im losing her instead im angry,sad,lost,and hopeless im deeply sorry I couldn't make you happy but I definitely tried my best with the little things I've had through out these years please forgive me when u finally pass( currently holding her) im not perfect im not right I'm just a 27yr old man with nothing and trying to make it all work im so srry

She made it 16 years. She has been with me more than half my life and I am devastated to have to keep living without her. I miss her so tremendously. I hope she can live here on Reddit forever and ever like she will in my heart. I miss you Leona🩷

My sweet angel, Babes. The light of my life.

Edit: Thank you so much for all the lovely comments. You're all making me cry with your love and support; it's comforting and cathartic. I might not reply to each comment directly, but I'm going to read them all, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you, everyone.

My best friend turns 16 today. Shes going strong tho shes refusing to groom herself and for a long haired kitty thats pretty bad. Im not sure if this is a subreddit where I can ask advice or not but any is appreciated.

I met my wonderful girlfriend four years ago and she came with Navy, a lovely chatty girl who was already 12. Navy's had some tummy issues but vets always assured us it was just IBD or general constipation, alongside FARS causing us to be extra careful of sounds around her as to not set off a seizure which meant no more time around the keyboard.

Fast forward to this past August and she begins to start having more stomach issues except this time there was blood in her diarrhea. Over the course of the next two months we saw her slowly waste away as she dropped from 10.5 lbs to around 6.5 lbs. Multiple vet appointments, supplements, steroids, and it just never got better.

On her final night two weeks ago, I stayed up to take her to a different vet in the morning when they opened at 7 AM as I work until the early morning hours. At around 4:30 I hear her wailing from the bedroom and find her completely limp with eyes bulging, another seizure. Her third in two months. After one of those she started losing mobility in her hind right leg but my vet made me believe it was just strained from the seizure. This one removed all mobility from her rear legs.

At this point I could tell it was time but didn't want to believe. We rushed her to the emergency ER where they confirmed the worst, a large hardened mass in her intestines around an inch long. Our options were palliative care, something we had basically already been doing for two months, a surgery with biopsy which was risky given her current health, or humane euthanasia.

We made the hard decision for her to be free from the pain. It hurts, and it hurts every day seeing all of Navy's things around and not finding her in her spots or hearing her meows. I feel like it's hitting me even harder because my own father has been dealing with intestinal cancer since his diagnoses in early December last year and the parallels are frightening to me.

I'll forever miss and love you, Navy. I hope you're having fun up in heaven with your brothers.

About 8 months ago I had to put down my best friend who was 10, he was a Manie Coon, had him longer than my kids have been alive. He was sick and it was time, I was so devastated and still am. Still think it was a mistaken… anyway. My other senior cat is 13 and she’s just starting to not be well. Peeing outside of the litter box, although still poops in it. Doesn’t eat much, still drinks and loves treats though. Has always had a limp and was never in pain, the limp is getting worse but she’s not in any pain. Check it daily, poke and touch and it’s never an issue. Not in any pain and still purrs and cuddles every night. She absolutely hates people, so terrified of my husband who I’ve been with for seven years, only loves him when she’s asleep, he loves her I’m not sure why she’s afraid. My kids are still little so she hates them being loud. Taking her to get anything medical wise done has always been so traumatic, like for days after wouldn’t eat, bitting and hissing the vet techs, took almost a week to recover. So any testing is out of question. Plus a cbc and urinalysis is about $750 which unfortunately I don’t have the money for… doctor can’t do anything else. Not sure what to do, I don’t want to give up on her, I’m not ready for another loss… I know you’re never ready but it’s too soon since my other cat. I’m not sure what I’m looking for… my husband doesn’t understand how attached I am to her. I can’t just put her down. I’m so emotional it’s been affecting my work which never happens. I cry every day and every time I think about her. I am such a depressed mess. She’s my best friend, always there for me, so loud and chatty, been with me for 13 years. My teenage years to adulthood… so many emotions. Im a mess. Any similar experiences maybe.. Thanks for reading or not. I needed a vent I guess to people who understand cat love.

It's tiring to be so pretty

I am genuinely at an absolute loss. My Momo after 16 years…He was my entire life since I was 13. It seems my life has just been a series of devastating losses and I just don’t understand…I lost my dad last year my mother and grandmother the year before and now this year my baby…I feel like a piece of shit for even thinking this but id rather go through the death of my mother then to go through this one…
I am not sure how to do this without him. He’s been by my side for the last 16 years… He’s been my everything and now what??
I don’t know what to do…I miss him everyday and this one fucking suckkks

miss Mercy Buttercup is 16 and weigh 6 pounds

Second photo - she’s glaring at Sealpoint Valentino is 6 and 16 1/2 pounds - ginger tabby Tony is 16 months and 13 lbs

I was looking forward to posting a Happy 17th Birthday post about my girl Lacey next month but cancer had a different plan. It took her so quickly.

We got Lacey in 2009 as a feral cat but she turned into the sweetest, most loving cat. I guess I just wanted to show her off, show you who she was. I have attached a few of my favorite pictures of her.

How do you all deal with the grief? The pain is unbearable. Goodbye, muffins 💔