A great big bucket of "It ain't fair!"

[Update 3/25/08: Smokey passed at home away this afternoon.]

M&L's cat, Smokey, has been losing weight for a while and has shown little interest in eating, even the good stuff. I brought him to the vet on Friday and today received the results of the blood tests. In brief, his body isn't producing any new red blood cells even as it destroys the ones that he has. It sounds like cancer in the bone marrow.

We concluded that the best thing to do is nothing, except to try to keep him comfortable. He doesn't seem to be in any pain. He's lethargic and, as mentioned, has little interest in eating. At yesterday's Easter gathering, he just wanted to sit on the carpet in the middle of everything. We'd move him out of the way and he'd come back to the same spot.

Smokester is the mellowest cat I've known, particularly for being an outdoor cat. He'll spend a day in the woods hunting and then come home to be carried around like towel in a family of six kids.

The real kicker is that Smokey and Tess are just about the same age, a few weeks apart. They got Smokey shortly after Tess was born. They've grown up together. Tess will have go on without him. Ouch.