Still Life, With Cats

No one in this house is at ALL a fan.

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Cancer.

It isn’t a surprise. Not really. We wanted it to be something else but I think we both knew before the appointment this morning what the vet was going to say. There is more going on than just the tumor (likely bone infection), but really, the actual diagnosis doesn’t make a difference. What matters is that it’s eventually going to kill her.

We’ll pamper our elderly little tortie cat as much as we can over the next few weeks or months or however long her good days will last, and we will monitor her quality of life. At her age there isn’t really anything else we can do. Right now the vet doesn’t think it’s bothering her, but that’s only a matter of time. And when it looks like she is starting to feel bad, then we will make the hardest decision and we will help her go.

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So we thought things were doing pretty well with Rosie, after the initial diagnosis of the oral fistula. But then she started slowly refusing to eat, and we realized she was losing weight, so back to the vet we went again, this time for blood tests. Naturally, they came back inconclusive, because apparently nothing with Rosie can ever be cut and dried. They gave us some medication to help calm her gut, we bought out the stock of beef baby food from every grocery store in the surrounding few miles (since that’s the only flavor she showed any interest in), and we settled in to see if things would improve.

And thankfully, they did. Slowly. Of course, she now refuses to eat the brand of cat food she was eating before, but we’re used to that kind of ‘fun’ (because it would be cheaper to buy cans of food by the case, except when the cat for whom you buy it is known to be picky and suddenly decide that a flavor she’s been eating for months is no longer acceptable, thus leaving you with a largely untouched stack of cans that are now useless). Luckily we found a brand she *will* eat, and over the past two weeks she’s been steadily improving, even gaining back nearly half the pound she lost in the two weeks prior.

Alas, along with the returning appetite came the returning mouth issues. We’ve been monitoring it for a couple days to see if it might clear up on its own, but no such luck. Our regular vet couldn’t get us in until some time next week, so we decided to bite the bullet and take her to the one that’s really close to our house (we don’t go to this one normally because they have this annoying tendency to push lots of expensive tests and treatments that are completely unnecessary, and sure enough, they did it this time too, ugh. Lucky we’re both very good at saying no).

Thankfully, instead of sending her home with a bottle of medicine (because while she’s super easy to pill, dosing her with liquid medication is a nightmare), they gave her a single shot that will supposedly do the trick. So now we get to sit back and wait, and keep an eye on hole in her mouth to see if it gets better.

And whatever we do, we are not going to Google oral cancer. Nope. Not again.

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Every morning for the past few weeks, as soon as I sit down at my desk, Nutmeg comes tearing into the office, dashes up the cat tree, and then proceeds to flail around wildly on the top of my desk. Occasionally a little head peeks (often upside down) over the edge, but primarily the only way I know she’s there is the sound of her sliding around on the wood.

At some point she then decides it’s time to see what I’m up to, so then I look up to see a fuzzy little gargoyle peering down at me.

I’m not sure why the top of my desk has suddenly become the best place to play in the morning. But when one lives with cats one learns that it’s really pointless to ask ‘why’. And at least if she is flailing around being cute up there, she is *not* gnawing on the corner of the ledge over the window. No, I have no idea why she does *that* either.

*****

So – an update on Rosemary and her weird mouth hole.

I took her to our regular vet on Wednesday, as per the instructions of the emergency vet. They’d faxed over all the info so our regular vet would have a heads up, and he was, I think, prepared for something really awful. But he opened her mouth and peered in and seemed more than a bit surprised that it wasn’t as bad as he was expecting.

We still have no idea what caused the hole in the first place. She had a bunch of teeth extracted back in November, but it’s not anywhere near where those came out. It is most likely a fistula, although he doesn’t think it goes all the way through to the nasal cavity (and after being extra snuffly and sneezy the few days prior to the vet appointment = because when one’s human is nervously Googling oral-nasal fistulas, and oral abscesses, and oral tumors (for the love of all that is holy do *not* Google oral tumors!), it is important to try to work in as many extra symptoms as you can just to mess with her head, after all – she’s no longer doing that either). The sides of the hole look smooth and clean – no sign of infection at all, so clearly the antibiotics have been doing their job. And bonus, he said it looks as if it’s actually trying to heal up.

So – current plan is that she gets to finish out the 10 days of the antibiotics (which isn’t any fun for us humans because Reasons that you really do not want me to go into more detail on, although I will say that i am SO VERY GLAD WE DO NOT HAVE CARPET), and we’ll keep an eye on it, but right now, the news is all good. Phew.

We decided that today was the day to put up the Christmas tree. Naturally, we had feline assistance (click any of the pictures below to embiggen).

Here is Sherman, looking oh-so-cute and innocent.

The second Richard started pulling down the ladder to the attic, however, he knew something was up.

Richard went up to the attic. I stayed below, camera at the ready. Sherman did not disappoint.

Yes, he climbed that all by himself. Shortly after I took this picture, he was unceremoniously removed from the ladder, and the room, and the doors were shut, so that we could extract all the Christmas items from the attic without also having to extract a cat.

Nutmeg, meanwhile, found the entire process boring and wished we would quit banging around in the room so she could focus on the birds outside.

We dragged the tree box out to the living room. 0.1 nanoseconds after opening it, this is what we had.

I’m not sure what he thinks might be in there. But then, this *is* the cat who is convinced that every single thing in the universe is a Thing for Cats.

Once we’d pulled out a few sections of the tree, Rupert joined the party.

Poor Azzie. He got so confused by the whole process, and sat by the open box trying to figure out what he’d missed.

Richard stuck the first section of the tree into the stand. Sherman waited all of about 2 microseconds before climbing aboard.

He was quite pleased with himself for having scaled the tree.

He was not as pleased when we tried to convince him to get out of the way so we could put the next section into place.

Of course once part 2 was up, he had to inspect our construction techniques, and also see if it might possibly now be tall enough to get to those shelves above the windows.

Sorry, Sherman, we’ve got one more section to go. Time to move, little buddy.

Luckily, there was a giant empty box, perfect for distracting him long enough so we could get the final piece assembled.

Next came the decorating. You can see that one of the ornaments put itself on the tree. You might also notice that every other ornament on the tree is of the non-breakable, safe for cats kind. Some people can put all sorts of fragile, pretty things on their trees. Those people do not live with Sherman.

And here it is, our fully decorated Catmas tree, complete with (if you make the picture larger you can see him) cat.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.