I have a 17 year old cat. I've had her since she was a kitten and we've been together all this time. She's my moon and stars. My kid. My familiar. My everything. I've had her half my life at this point.

Her health took a nosedive starting a few months ago. She's 17. I knew that this was coming, but I hoped I'd have one of those cats that lived into their 20's.

She drools constantly. Not just saliva, either. When she eats she just strings along her food/it drools out of her mouth. She shakes her head and slings it fucking everywhere. I'm never getting my apartment deposit back. My carpet is ruined. So many things in my apartment are ruined.

She has flareups of IBD off and on because of some of the medications she's on. Nothing is sacred when you have a pet with explosive diarrhea.

Right now I'm in limbo of [very expensive] vet visits.

The vet is about 80% sure she has some sort of oral cancer, but we're trying to find out for sure before deciding on our next plans. We have to wait to get some of her other stuff leveled out before it would be safe for her to be sedated to have a proper exam, possibly a biopsy of what seems like a growth in her mouth.

I had to do a medication dose change and it's another two weeks or so before she can get more bloodwork to see if it's working, then we can schedule her full mouth exam to see what's truly going on in there. If the dose changed worked. I might have to do it all over again, and keep waiting.

I don't want to make any rash decisions before I know for sure. If we find that it's definitely cancer then I will keep doing stuff I had planned for her bucket list [I've already started] and ensure that she gets the best send-off she can, before it gets to the point where she's languishing. I won't let her get that bad.

But in the meantime her care is essentially 24-7 right now. I have to chase after her and wipe her face after she eats, after she drinks. I have to give her daily 'sink baths' to help try and wash her face/paws because she cakes herself withdrooly food in her fur and it makes her crusty and fucking reek. She's given herself rashes from it. I have to give her full baths weekly now. She hates it. I hate it. I have to wipe down all the surfaces [walls especially] every week to try and clean up her cat food drool. Floors. Curtains. Furniture. Every surface you can think of, she's spattered with stinky cat food drool. It stains.

I know this is small potatoes in comparison to say, like, a human child. But I'm child free by choice for lots of reasons. I have another cat who I can't help but partially neglect because of all this. I feel awful, but trying to juggle my 40 hour job on top of full time care for my cat all of my other responsibilities... I'm exhausted.

I don't get any time to myself anymore. It's work, cat care, sometimes sleep [not much because of said cat care], repeat. My weekends aren't my own anymore. I don't really get 'time off' from work anymore because my second job is taking care of my sick cat. I couldn't use any of my time off I wanted to take recently because she needs full-time care and medicine. What little spare money I have is going towards her vet visits/care. I've been specifically buying less food for myself/wherever I can save some money to try and make things easier when the vet bills hit.

All this being said, she's not to the point where it seems like it's time to let her go. She still harasses the other cat in the house. Harasses me. Is the Queen of the Abode. Still has her attitude and quirks. If it wasn't for the mouth issues you wouldn't know she was sick. Most who see her can't believe she's 17.

I wouldn't/won't put her down out of convenience for myself. I signed on for this, when I got her as a gift as a teenager and promised that I would care for her. She's my responsibility to the very end. She's my kid. You take care of your kids through thick and thin.

But I'm tired. It's a mostly thankless job. Yes, I adore the cuddles and when she kneads on me, even when she sticks her litter-covered paw in my face to wake me up for food. But she's also, again, 17 and cantankerous as hell sometimes.

I catch myself sometimes having hopeful[?] thoughts that it'll be 'time' sooner rather than later and then I immediately break down sobbing because I'm not ready to let her go. I'll never be ready to let her go. I keep having these sorts of thoughts when things get really rough. I lose my temper and yell at her when she can't help most of the things she does.

It makes me feel like the scum of the earth and I immediately regret it.

But I'm just so tired... yet I'm going to miss her so much I can't even bear to think about when she's gone.