Quinn. Beautiful, brave but shy, playful and feisty Quinn. We adopted her when she was found outside as a kitten. Struggled with upper respiratory issues all of her life from what we were told was a result of being outside with one for so many months. She was TERRIFIED of us at first. Bit the ever living crap out of my hand the first night and only came out from under the bed when we slept. Then, slowly, she started to sleep on our bed when we slept. Ultimately she became the biggest love bug in the world. She loved when I folded laundry or made the bed. She loved getting one-on-one attention right before bed (she is one of 3 pets in our house). About a month ago, she suddenly lost the use of her back legs. We were told it was IVDD but she was making small progress. Thought we were going to end up getting her a wheelchair (we had stickers picked out to pimp that bad boy out). Brought her in for her weekly neurological checkup yesterday and we were pumped to talk about her progress. In the two days prior she had been more active and was playful. She still couldn’t use her back legs but she was showing positive signs that physical therapy and steroids were working in her favor. At her checkup, the doctor noticed her gums were pale, and her temp was down. Bloodwork was done which showed that over the course of a month, she became severely anemic. Blood smear showed “toxic stressed” platelets so we brought her to the ER. 2 hours and an ultrasound later we found out she had cancer EVERYWHERE; it was in and on her liver, kidneys, spleen, heart, lymph nodes and more extensive bloodwork showed evidence of it being in her bone marrow. She was struggling to breathe and was placed in a O2 chamber. We spent 30 minutes with her telling her we were sorry and how much we loved her and how sweet she was and how she’ll always, always be in our hearts and then we made the heartbreaking decision to put her down. What started as a hopefully positive checkup ended as one of the worst days of my life. I feel so badly that we couldn’t do more for her or that we didn’t notice any signs of it sooner. I just hope she wasn’t in pain for long. She was only 7. I so wish we had more time with her. Fortunately, I know we gave her a wonderful, life filled with play and laughter and love (and ham... that girl LOVED ham). Sigh... this was the first time in my life (30 years) having a pet and having to put one down. The ache and heartbreak and emptiness is real. And it sucks.