Brave Troopers

Bullwinkle and Auntie Martha:

Is that her left shoulder?

(We were all younger then.)

Bullwinkle seemed very anxious this weekend every time I left the house, and he spent as much time with me as he possibly could while I was home. Today was another 13-14 hour day for me, and even though Aunties Martha and Lina came over to feed him dinner, Bullwinkle seemed very disgruntled by the time I got home: he was crying piteously and wouldn't come over to see me. I picked him up and he climbed onto my shoulder (the left one of course) where he has stayed ever since. I am actually flushing his feeding tube as I write because he will not be dislodged.

He really doesn't feel very good -- yet, it still doesn't seem to me as if he's ready to give it up. He's been a very brave, stoic, and heroic trooper; if I'm ever in his situation, I hope I behave even half as well as he has.

Auntie Martha (photo above) is quite the brave trooper herself: she gave away one of her kidneys to a perfect stranger, in an historic 3-way "paired donation" a couple of years ago -- and KRQE aired a show about her experience this morning. You can see it here. Bullwinkle & I are very proud that she's our friend.

Back to Bullwinkle: I'm worn out worrying about him and grieving for him. When I woke up this morning, he was curled up in a tiny, tight little ball and was very still. For a moment I thought he had died in his sleep -- and then I saw him breathing and realized he was still alive. The relief I felt for that short moment made me understand that what bothers me more than anything is the prospect of actually putting him down. I so wish he would die peacefully in his sleep....

The Comeback Cat

Snoozing in the sun this morning.

Bullwinkle's amazing. He feels much, much better tonight than he has for weeks. It was quite difficult to feed him through the feeding tube tonight -- he kept wanting to run around. He rode around on my shoulder most of the evening, sniffing (in a very engaged way, I might add) at every bit of food I tried to eat. So I opened a can of Fancy Feast for him (salmon) and he practically buried his head in it. (He did try to eat some but wailed while he was trying -- I think it must really hurt to try to use his tongue.)

My coworker John, who hates cats (and who therefore can't be trusted, so he's probably wrong), claims that Bullwinkle has no intention of ever dying, because he finally has me right where he wants me -- wrapped right around his little claw. :-)

I took a short video of Bullwinkle while he was purring and kneading on my shoulder; you can see it here.

I really want to thank you all for your sympathy, support, and encouragement. They've meant so much to me, and I really do think they've meant a lot to Bullwinkle too (in some way that's impossible to understand or gauge).

... And One Step Back

Actually, it seems like several steps back. Bullwinkle really hasn't been very interested in food the last couple of days. Yesterday he got very wobbly and weak -- I am sooooo hoping that's a side effect of the chemo -- and he's pretty subdued today. I'm not overly worried -- yet -- because we have an appointment with Dr. Kelly, the cancer vet tomorrow. She's going to do more bloodwork to see how things are going and if we should continue with the chemo. Probably needless to say, my heart will be broken if she thinks we shouldn't.

The photo above is another very early shot of Bullwinkle. He has always liked to sit on people's shoulders -- their left shoulder, to be precise, never their right shoulder. He's always been very uniquely himself, even at a very young age.

A little of the backstory: Bullwinkle's original, diagnosing vet sent him home to die -- she said nothing could be done for sub-lingual squamous cell carcinoma. I went out on the web to research it, and everything I found seemed to confirm what the original vet had said. So I settled in (very unhappily) to hospice care.

When Dr. Blackshear came to see him -- three weeks after the original diagnosis, and more than two after the biopsy results confirmed it -- she said, "Oh, I have a patient who had exactly the same thing -- and she did very well on chemotherapy." I was very skeptical but she kept pushing me -- and well, now Bullwinkle's on chemo. I have no idea whether Bullwinkle's will turn out to be a success story or not -- but I want other people to know that there are options for treating their pets. So that's one of my two goals for this blog -- to help people know what might be available. I feel we lost precious time in getting treatment for him -- and I'm hoping to help other folks keep from losing that time. (This is the place that's treating Bullwinkle, by the way.) The other goal of the blog, of course, is to keep Bullwinkle's many friends, admirers, and supporters updated on his progress.

Last night, Bullwinkle's Auntie Joyce -- our neighbor who has gone wayyyyyy above and beyond -- came over and videoed the feeding tube process. The four posts below show how it's working for us.

Two Steps Forward ...

... and one step back. When I got home tonight, Bullwinkle was in a pretty bad mood, whining and looking rather disgruntled. Naturally I did what any good kitty mother/housekeeper would do -- I gave him pain meds through his feeding tube immediately. :-)

His neck is very itchy and his mouth is bothering him -- he keeps reaching up with both paws to try to get something out of his mouth. But when I rattled the magic bottle -- the plastic container with kitty tartar control treats -- he barreled across the room and up onto the second level of the cat tree, which is the only acceptable place to eat kitty treats (everyone knows that!). I put a few out ... and he actually ate some! Keep in mind that these are hard treats -- amazing.

The photo is one of the earliest I have of Bullwinkle (and uh, yeah... I was a bit younger then too). It was taken with the very first digital camera I had -- a Sony Mavica that recorded the pictures to a floppy.