Chemo Fur

Happier, healthier days.

Some of my students have told me they have "chemo brain," which I take to mean they feel foggy and forgetful (although it's worth noting that they have been some of the most engaged of my students). I think Bullwinkle must have chemo fur: his fur is wayyyy softer than it's ever been. Very silky and smooth.

Every night, for most of the time we've lived here, we've sat together at the top of the stairs and had a big cuddlefest. Part of the cuddlefest has often involved him sitting in the skirt of whatever mumu or nightgown I happened to be wearing, as if it were a pouch (I often called him my little marsupial). He stopped being so interested in the cuddlefest a little while before he was diagnosed though -- I didn't know he was sick, and just thought its charms had worn off for him. We still had our little ritual, but not every night.

After the first chemo treatment (two weeks ago), he was really freaked out about upstairs. He had spent a lot of time at the top of the stairs through most of his illness (I had put some blankets on the floor up there for him) and I guessed that he must have had some hallucinatory-type dreams about the top of the stairs while he was under anesthesia. So that was yet another loss -- no nightly cuddlefest any more.

But something happened this week. My theory (which may have no basis in actual fact) is that Bullwinkle really doesn't handle anesthesia very well. With hindsight (which in my case, still isn't 20/20), I think he spent the better part of three days this past week just recovering from the anesthesia on Monday. This is why I won't take him back for more chemo -- he was too sick just from the anesthesia. But it seems as if the effects of the chemo kicked in at the end of the week -- and he's felt much, much better. And, best of all from my point of view -- we've gone back to our nightly cuddlefests at the top of the stairs (he beat me up the stairs last night).

And he is still a night person, I mean, cat. He sort of hangs out all day looking a bit iffy (happily, the Dick Cheney look he had earlier today is mostly gone) and then wakes up when it gets dark. Which means it's really hard to feed him through his feeding tube at night lately. Last night he ran up to the top of the cat tree (this is with a syringe of food hanging from his feeding tube) and stayed there. So there I was, standing next to the cat tree, reaching way up over my head to feed him. I don't think I imagined the wacky grin on his face. :-)

Still, he's a very sick cat, and definitely getting weaker. Today I could tell he really wanted to jump up to a stool, but didn't think he could make it -- so I picked him up and put him there. :-(