My heart is aching!!

My kitty Meepers, even with recently peeing on the living room floor, is my baby. No two ways about it. He is the adorable ball of orange and white fluff that just loves nothing more than to cuddle or to lick your forehead. He has been my baby for nearly 17 years when DH brought him home a few months after my mom passed away. He was my *saving* grace when I grieved for her. Up until that point I was still really numb from the loss of my mom and I was just going through the motions. Even though we already had two kitties, there was something really special about him and I was instantly in love with him.

Meepers has not been great for I'd say at least 6mths. I've noticed he doesn't wander as much as he used to. He pretty much was sleeping in one spot, about 2 feet from the food bowl, and I noticed a bag of food that would have normally lasted 10 days has been lasting longer and longer. When we started shuffling things around for Steph to move in he started sleeping under the boys beds and I saw less and less of him.

A few months ago I noticed on his tummy a hard cyst like thing near one of his nipples. It wasn't much bigger than a pea really and it didn't seem to bug him for me to touch it. I've kept an eye on it and noticed it getting bigger and bigger but again, he seemed pretty Ok, and as long as he wasn't in pain I just let it go. After all he is getting up there in age...

Today my allergies are killing me, I've had a headache for 3 days and I put a movie in for the kids, and laid on my bed where it was darker, with the ice pack. Suddenly I hear G yell that there is blood all over the kitchen. I go in and there is a lot of blood on the kitchen floor and all over Meepers feet. It was obviously coming from the cat. I lifted him, his tummy was covered in blood. I was struck dumb for a minute, unsure what to do. I wrapped him in a towel, went on the porch with my phone and called my DH at work. He's stuck there, not much help he could be from 38 miles away. He suggested I call his sister and yes her dolt of a husband. I don't like the guy but he does want to be a vet tech, has worked for several vets so I put in a call to my SIL, who in turn calls him and my MIL to come over.

I waited for them on the porch, snuggled up with the him in the towel, and he licked my forehead and was purring. I was really afraid to look more closely by myself(I know I'm a coward). Tim got here and once we cleaned away some of the blood it wasn't so bad. I have to say, I may not like the guy, but he is good with animals and was very good with *me*. In his not-so-professional opinion, Meepers had licked one of the cysts open and cats have a lot of blood vessels on their tummies, hence the amount of blood(and honestly their wasn't a lot but he had moved it around a lot so it looked like more than there was, especially since his tummy and the floor are white). He told me to clean it and try to cover it if I could because Meepers will keep licking it if we don't. He said that fact that the cyst was so hard, and had a blood supply and had gotten so much larger in a short amount of time(it is now the size of a quarter), are all not good signs. He helped me while I got him bandaged as best I could and then he went home.

After he left I did a better inspection and realized the spot he licked open wasn't the spot I noticed a few months ago, but a new spot, and that the old spot, was now HUGE, and hard and it too looked liked he had licked it open at one point as well. I put him in the tub and rinsed his belly best I could and that's when I felt even more lumps, bumps, and all other kinds of oddity. My stomach sank.

I can't do this, I can't make this choice, I can't.......