Eight year old Warp is fading but still with us.  Her stamina is amazing.
She drinks enough to avoid dehydration but has no desire to eat, which is
to be expected, though once in a while she takes just a few licks of a/d
in water but that seems to be more to make us happy.  In her final days
my mother had no desire for food, either; much of this brings back those
memories.
 
We are worried that Warp may be starting to have kidney problems due to a
mouth lesion.  Hopefully not.  We've been letting her pass at home with
careful pain control because her past involved abuse and she stresses
very easily so for her sake this seems to be the kinder option instead of
the usual, though I can sure tell you that a protracted death-watch is
incredibly difficult.  One of her malignancies, likely the lymphoma, is so
advanced that the sweet rot smell permeates her and we smell of it from
holding her.  If it starts in on something like her kidneys she will have
to have a mercy shot because then the pain will be beyond what we can
control with her pain meds, but we want to spare her the stress since she
is so upset by males other than Steve or Joe now that if we sit with her
by the tv we've taken to watching it without sound (so she is usually
with us for other things like writing computer messages), but there isn't
time for tv unless we are sitting with her, anyway, though we are letting
ourselves have about a half hour of comedy each night because we just
plain need it.
 
She got to do her nighttime "Trick Daddy" three times last night.  Two of
the times she was so tired she settled in to sleep with him.  The first
time she decided that his nose would be a good pillow (He was on his
side.) and just laid her head on his nose and nodded off.
 
I still pretend that she has a wonderful bakery smelling belly for her
and do big belly-sniffs; she loves that.
 
It's a very hard haul, both emotionally and physically.
 
Am still asking folks to not write to me privately because I just don't
have the time for anything but her, Steve, the other ferrets (with Sev due
for surgery on Wednesday), the FHL moderation, and a few letters/posts,
and that is sharing chores with Steve and doing shifts with him.
 
Many, many thanks to the other moderators who are helping off-set some
of my part of the FHL chores, and to folks who are doing archive searches
and encouraging others to do so, and to the many folks who give such
excellent advice for everyone daily.  You have no idea how deeply I
appreciate you all and the ways you help everyone.  You are treasures.
[Posted in FML issue 3824]