That's all that matters. I know with my cat Tripod, I don't take any days I have with him for granted just because when he was less than a year old I took him for his first vet exam; he had never actually been examined by a doctor because he had only been vaccinated with a 3-in-1 by a volunteer after he got rescued from the cat colony he was in.

The vet tech told me bluntly, "He has FIP." I went home and looked that up, and realized he had just been given a death sentence; feline infectious peritonitis comes in two forms—"dry" and "wet"—but either way, the cat is living on borrowed time. In time, I've been told he just has the coronavirus, and since my pet health insurance just sent him a birthday card, he's apparently just celebrated his seventh birthday.

I had a cat die at 20 a few years ago, and it wasn't any easier to let him go than if he'd been younger. You're in my thoughts.