Sweet Pea, our “first born” as we affectionately refer to her. She’s always been our “hearty” cat. Never a vet visit needed outside of her routine/annual check-ups……until now that is. Several weeks ago I noticed Sweet Pea had a bit of a limp in her front left leg. She had a limp about 6-8 months ago (maybe longer and I can’t recall which leg it was, but I do know it was a front leg) that I chalked up to a bad landing from a jump. Surely at 15+ years there could be these little mishaps, or maybe a bit of arthritis was setting in? Of course I kept an eye on it then and as I had hoped, after a week or so it seemed to have healed…..no more limp.

Fast forward to mid-July(ish) and I notice Sweet Pea has a limp again, and again it’s in a front leg, the left one. I figured she probably had another bad landing, and again I kept an eye on it. It was about a week (give or take) after discovering this limp that I also began to notice a few other things one by one. For example, she’d be sitting nearby with the others either waiting to be given a snack, or waiting for dinner to be served, and the next time I looked she’d be laying down with her left leg extended out straight. Somewhere around this time I also noticed that she really wasn’t eating much of her meals, she was laying around more than usual (always with the left leg extended out straight), and although she had slacked in her grooming over the last few years, I realized now that she had stopped grooming herself altogether. My ‘RED FLAGS’ alarm went off in my head and I knew this might be something more than just a bad landing that would heal on its own. It was time for a trip to the vet!

Her routine annual was back in Feb. at which time she weighed 11.8 lbs. Her weight had been decreasing with each of her last couple of routine annual check-ups, most likely due to aging and slowing down. On Saturday 8/12/17 Sweet Pea was checked over by our vet where her weight was now down to 10.4 lbs. A mass was also found during the exam above her elbow on her left leg. This was the reason for her leg staying extended out when she’d lay down, the range of motion was being restricted. Our vet was able to schedule Sweet Pea for an x-ray the following Tuesday and he was also going to try aspirating the mass to see if he could get any fluid out to have viewed/tested.