The Photos of the End

I have to show you what stopped my life cold last month.

The Dude now looks like a pregnant girl with a four or five kitten litter ready to pop.  I must say, he actually acts that way too.  But... I was explained that the BIG WHITE BALL (a month ago... this was about the size of my fist) is a tumor.  Nothing more or less.  The little blip open space at the high spot near his spine is his stomach, the couple of blops at the bottom are  his bowel.

He has been eating soft food and I am setting my own time table:  When he doesn't have a bowel movement for three days or he begins vomiting a lot, I will know it has taken up all of his digesting space and we will have to make arrangements.....

..... but..... this time there is NO good outlook.  Anyone who has a vet in town that actually thinks they want to whittle him away would be welcome, but I cannot pay.  I am reactivating my go fund me account, to see if I can give the extra to my own absolutely wonderful vet who has worked with me so long and been so generous.  I am WAY behind, and fighting to pay the other bills. JUST something to feel like I am useful.

MEANWHILE, he is absolutely normal.
I was thinking of renaming the blog "Dead Cat Walking" but although morbidly humorous, I can't sustain the giggle that I had when he merrily waddled away and took a swipe at my foot on the way.

This post may not last long.  I just needed to vent... I mostly just watch him sleep and see him inhaling and exhaling and it makes me happy.....
Thanks to you all.  I really can't tell you how much I appreciated EVERY single one of you.
dj*

Called the Hospital

Mostly just to check in. My biggest problem is he has suddenly become very mellow and social. NOT lovey-dovey, but very friendly! An unusual condition indeed!

The results for his outgoing test, five days after treatment had his T4 (the big thyroid indicator - normal range between 4 and .8) at 2. SO PERFECT!!!

His thyroid which has come back from hiding while the wild cells took over his life, is apparently popping back into action. He is mellow, not lethargic - nappy, not sleepy - alert, not wired - and now we add more and more pops onto my lap to say hi... which is regulated to 30 minutes a day. He is getting even in his very personally subversive way!

Wednesday Morning Report

I am just a potato.

The car is scheduled to be done this morning. . . that nebulous time until like 3 PM.

So I was watching tv and doing email and just waiting.

They outsmarted me today, as both times yesterday I called as Melanie was still in her garb from doing her rounds. She called right about 9. And her assessment was "FANTASTIC."

She said he was still hissing but after talking to me, had a better assessment of his personality. She said he even purred a little when he was examined. His urine is great but the bowel is a little slow. I warned her that he is VERY good at that part when it works!

She explained that the little cages have a litterbox and food and water and that my scratcher is a bit big for it. So she took the mousey off the board and he is cuddling it. AH. . . . He would probably be using the board to take his frustrations out on me but he will have to satisfy himself with a slightly catnipped sisal mousey which he doesn't really give a hoot about.

No weight GAIN, but he is stable, and stuff is going in. His panic attacks are diminished and he is apparently used to the gang. For now.

Tomorrow is bath day, and I won't be able to come see him until after 3.

They sedate him and want to be sure he is not limp when I get a look. Apparently is it 36 hours after treatment and they did him after 1 so they estimate a couple of hours to make him presentable.

I am pretty sure I will be able to take a few more snaps, maybe even of the isolation ward, when I go tomorrow. They have a bank of cages, a little roomier (vet dog size) and we can come scratch noses and feed treats for a couple of days. Then Friday again, then they will allow me to bring him back after the last bath on Saturday.

This all is great. They call it ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) radiation. This is another reason I was thrilled to use VCA instead of Radiocat. I was unhappy to make him sick for an additional 11 days, but Radiocat was fine with four days off meds. They understood I had misgivings, but I also could not see how the BEST effect could be achieved if they didn't maximize the activity of the disease. We had an ongoing miscommunication that was very frustrating.

They also would only keep him for the three days. YES AND NO. I live in a small house and was thrilled to see him back, BUT I like that VCA is monitoring him those two full days more. The days out of isolation and under the care of the staff is going to be good for ME. I am old enough to probably not have to worry about a lot of the issues that a younger woman would have from exposure, but my thyroid is just fine right now. Nice to keep it that way.

AND VCA is authorized to only do a top end of radiation. It should work fine on him, as he has a pretty high number, when he is tested later and his numbers should be fine, he comes up sick, they will RE-treat him at no added charge. This is very comforting, as the fund is all I have. I would NEVER be able to afford this twice!

Tomorrow - pictures!

9:45 AM Day Two

So we got the first overnight report.

He ate well, drank well but had, as of morning, nothing coming out. Well, the guy was ticked off at me YESTERDAY morning when he didn't get his breakfast, so he was probably empty. She said she will look in again in a little while, but that she was not concerned. . .

However, she did say he was a little bit less cooperative than she expected.

She said he hissed and batted at her when she went in to give him more water.

We were not concerned.

I explained that if he bats with his ears back, he means back off. Otherwise we play that way. The hiss? That is his quite clear announcement that he is not a happy camper. The Dude has always taken his stressers out on me. The Hiss is a very clear announcement that all is not right in his world. It really is not an very personal thing. He would run into the room when he was his sickest and just jump on my chest and hiss in my face. Not AT me, TO me. I explained that she should well heed him, but that he was announcing that he was going to write letters to the proprietor of the kitty spa! He rarely follows with a major nip.

And I did warn about the teeth. He is nippy. He boxes and has since he was teeny. His preferred plaything is hands. No fuzzy mousies, no birdies or balls. He likes matching wits with a human. So, I told her to watch those ears. If he bats with his ears plastered down, it is a warning. If they are up and tough, it is a challenge.... Better yet, just let him be grumpy and leave him alone.

Once he was chatting with a new neighbor through the screen. A cute petite female who looked like she might have a tag. I opened the door and she RAN in way before I could catch her. IMMEDIATELY the Dude began screaming! I would have thought he might want to say hi to her, or even joust her, but NOO. . . . . !! She darted right back out and he tore into my ankles and sliced and diced ME! Very obviously a complaint that his world would NOT tolerate intruders! I told the nurse that I tried to trim his front claws, that they looked pretty soft but for their own protection they MIGHT want to avoid them.

Well, that is a start. She did say she would call before she went home today and update the bodily functions report.

Hopefully they are well warned!

(The car is stuck in the shop. I apparently have a $200 plus issue which I should have over half covered by extended warranty. The repair should be easy. . . the bookwork will slow things down. So I sit for most of the day.)

CAR (not CAT) Issues Today.

(SHOOT! I swear I just heard him chatting in the other room. Either my ears or my head need adjusting!)

I am waiting for the first day post-procedure update. And the day BEFORE I took him in, my car started hesitating on start and downright grinding for a while! So, with all required events done, I took it to a nearby shop to see if the repair we did on the EXACT SAME THING earlier this year is a parts issue and warranteed or something new! So today I am required to sit - not the usual finding myself sitting.

I am low on coffee and deep in post walk-back-home endorphins and started thinking about this whole amazing project.

If you read back, you will find that I knew he was sick for a long time. As an artist in a bad economy I went to a seminar on how to raise funds . . . thinking it would be for support between commissioned work. As an off handed remark, the presenter read (from the list of projects on a site) "dog needs surgery" and went back into funding books and high rises.

!!!!!

I am on a very lean cash flow. Knowing that The Dude could be CURED not just managed was always eating in my brain but my cash flow being so negative it kept being pushed down.

After I headed home, I did a LOT of research. I realized I needed to understand ALL of the variables. I needed a real and worthwhile way of presenting my need, of letting people know who we were and why it was worth their time and money!

I am a blogger in the minimum. That means I do have one really respectable blog to expose my pet art called the Dog A Day Art Blog. I did one painting a day for over a year. It included commissions but mostly I sat my easel up in a local off-leash and practiced until I had covered most of the AKC breeds. . . MOST I say. . . Without fail, someone will bring in an intriguing mix that I will guess at and find it is the newest exotic! I will say, my knowledge of canine subjects is amazing since the last dog to live in my house was in the mid 80's!

Looking through the files (I know I have more photos, but they are on FLOPPY DISKS!!!) of the earliest Dude pix, I learned he was a bit younger (and an even better candidate for the procedure!) and really enjoyed skimming the overview of his life.

I can talk!

I can ramble on and on about what goes on in my head so I tended to be concise in my art blog and allow my words to dribble a bit here. After all, this is a love letter to my best friend.

(Sorry, family and boyfriend . . . but the original Kid was when I learned how very important the life form that sleeps at the foot of the bed EVERY night is above and beyond the two legged wandering types!)

I had to cut my first posts in bite sized chunks, just so I could call it a blog and not a novel!

I then searched all of the funding sites to see what suited us.

For others interested in crowd funding, google it! I was so touched by the idea! The very type of rush I get when I donate a portrait to a charity event is not just the reciprocal promotion, but the physical warmth I get knowing I am doing something good and tangible! But asking for help instead of giving it . . . I just didn't feel right.

I recently started picking carefully charities I would donate to because I was literally doing 80% freebies and not paying the bills. I joked that I WOULD BECOME A CHARITY SOON if this kept up. And I found a lot of people were in my boat. That we WANT to be part of the solution. It is not in my nature to shake fists at the dark, I am a candle lighter. But wickless!

The first donation I tried to give back. It was big. I got a scolding from the donor who explained that they felt SO GOOD helping me, that they had watched me online for years and KNEW me as a painter. To help me when I needed help was enriching them.

That completely blew my mind.

I am rambling as usual, but I wanted to reflect on how very amazing it is to be on the other end. Many of us out here (being self employed means I don't qualify for unemployment insurance between commissions, means I pay all of my income taxes, not just the employEE share and don't show up on statistics. At best I am under-employed but for months at a time, it doesn't feel like I am a very good boss.) want to keep the bounty flowing. I know there is a sort of constipation in the economy. It won't grow if it can't flow! I save money but have had to sort of become a hoarder. The emergencies don't announce themselves early. The wee income I do have has not found its way into the flow other than the ABSOLUTE necessities for quite a few years. After the Dude is well, I plan on adding my $5's and $10's to crowd sourcing activities on a regular basis.

I know how much that tiny little will help! I thank all of you who knew it before me!

4:15 and all is well. . .

I just got the call from the office and he is back awake, and they are going to give him some dry food and a bit of his cheap Friskies!

(He is NOT a picky eater, but when he got sick, he didn't eat. I started him on junk food and he loves the pate as a treat when I would give him his meds. So I threw a couple of cans of the usual in a baggie.)

Not much.

She says she will call tomorrow before 10 to see how his appetite is and what the post procedure effects are.

HOLY COW! Theoretically, I have a normal healthy cat after this! I am tearing up trying to remember what NORMAL was!

TODAY IS THE DAY!!

Here is the cage sitting in the vet's office waiting for them to come and take him away.

He had his little anxiety attack... and his mom is starting to be a mess.

You see, the vet said he has a slightly large heart.

That did freak me.

Feather had congestive heart failure. For a year or more, she just sort of sat in on a chair and watched life go by. The Dude is not in that condition. But . . .

He did his panting thing. Even the Radiology vet looked and wondered why. I explained he was having an anxiety attack. I KNOW he is.

They decided to change his meds from a simple knock out, bring back to feline Valium! PERFECT!

The whole procedure is less than 15 minutes. They do a bit of sedation to allow the injection and for a couple of baths that keep the radiation at the office and not in my living room.

Melanie, the girl who has helped me all the way along, said she will call me later this afternoon when he is done with the procedure and observed to be back to normal. He has a buddy who is coming in at 11 and both of them will get the procedure around 1. Then they sit in their very clean bank of cages with micro filtration banks of air sweepers for three days until they stop glowing.

From here on in, I hold my breath, go see what is wrong with my car (!?!?!?!?!) and hope that the sign over the desk is true:

HEEBIES!

I was watching the Dude, and absolutely thrilled that he was not looking uncomfortable, did not throw up last night and really seems so good, if a little skinnier than I hoped, when tonight I saw the first sign of his heebie jeebies return...

He was kicking his feet, which he was doing a little, but the foot fight was a definite FULL BLOWN symptom... and today he did his little backflip, that starts this older video off...

BUT he is quiet, doesn't yell or hiss at me. He eats his food and his extra wet food.

WE ARE SO CLOSE and I am really happy to see him not getting sick!

Yawning Welcome Home...

We had a couple of nights apart and the Dude... well....

Ever the exciting one, was not too impressed.

I did find a little more vomit trails (he had the habit of cleaning up after these things . . . GROSS!) but food was eaten well, water was consumed somewhat normally.

A little loose stool in the cat box and he is starting to be grumpy. He boxes me a bit more and does not want me to pet him - even after the long separation. I do see a little of the heebie jeebies starting.

He fights his feet, but still silently. I used to have him sit on me and purr and suddenly get a little wild eyed, go silent and run to the floor to hiss and chase his tail. I have had a couple of un warranted hisses in the last week. A lot more foot biting, but no real out right crazy spells.

I can see his personality getting a little different. He is more alert. As I mentioned, I figure it may be going off the medication, not having the disease re-appear. The symptoms are that his more lethargic and detatched attitude since he got back to normal, is going. He LIKES to chase the treats. For a while he would sort of watch and decide if he felt like the reward was good enough.

This morning, he is still a lot more away. More talky than lately and a wee bit leaner, or so I think.... four more days home then off to the kitty spa.

Sitting and Watching....

I have been literally sitting and watching him.

I am trying to figure out when he is going to start getting sick.

It is a hard thing, waiting for the old enemy to come in and take over my boy, as I have worked for two years to relieve his discomfort and distress caused by the disease.

First day he kept waiting for me to ambush and medicate him. He was disappointed. He was also lucky, as I was very preoccupied. I have a spec (that is art talk for "nobody has paid me, but if they like it I MIGHT sell it") portrait pending. So far, the client has rejected my first design and I am in the middle of the second. I will post it all when I get approval!

Monday I had to run over to my subject's office to snap a fast session for the portrait because I want to be in a show which has a Friday deadline for submissions. The Dude was unimpressed.

My first version was rejected and I am in the middle of finishing then photographing what I hope will be an approved version.

Yesterday I participated in the Arts and Business Council breakfast awards. I donated a gift certificate and finished a demo of one of the organizers.

I was able to participate in a really fun morning, schmoozing with fellow artists of all ilks! They sat me with the ballet and some children theater folk. Brought me back to my professional puppeteer days!!!

Last evening I probably hallucinated that the Dude was losing weight. He was mellow the first two days and even on day four, I see a couple of his old symptoms showing up.

His Feline Hyperesthesia, which is like hyper sensitivity to everything . . . basically the name for his heebie jeebies referenced earlier in my blog . . . is starting with occasional twitching. His foot, a little, like shaking an ant off three or four times. His back, a couple of ripples. And his old snotty mood when I pet him below the mid back. He used to rip into me when I would rub ANYWHERE near his hips. Now he is just letting me know it is not a good idea.

There is a little more grump today and I bought all the cheap fatty canned food I could. I want to be sure it is only the lack of his meds, not some other issue and I want him as FAT as I can get him when he goes in....

So.

Really it is boring but tense around here. On with art as a distraction!

Finally We Got Something Tangible!

This sort of thing went on off and on for about 5 or 6 years. Summer was worst.

The clip is a wonderful 3 AM chat right about the time it occurred to me to bring my camera to the vet!

I have been trying to find the right images to give you the sense of panic when I finally took him in. So I made this before and after. No, the one on the right is not a baby shot. It was two years ago when I started getting better at focusing because I was afraid I would not have him around much longer. 7 years apart:

Whether those other trips to the vet should have shown an underlying disease (like hypo?) is really irrelevant because he was otherwise healthy, had a good life and all I could afford was the usual vet stuff.

This time I had a LITTLE help with a raffle prize I had donated to a charity and a CLIENT of my art in the mix. Finally I could get to the bottom of things. It was not a really pretty bottom, but the minute she saw the video she had a much better idea of the tests. She printed the sheets out (including videos which MY guy is now in the mix on YouTube) of the "heebie-jeebies" and sent off his blood to see what else may be the problem.

A Story About His Dad.

Oreo.

His family kicked him out permanently when a younger cuter life form moved in. They had a baby and Oreo felt offended. Apparently took a bat at him . . . . So, he just was an outdoor cat. When they moved, Oreo didn't.

The little black female who I am sure was mom, was one of a couple of baby strays that had lived in my complex from when I first moved in the early 90's. Neither of these wild kids was fixed and it was after I had tried to get his step kids to foster care (The Dude, being all indoor, had me worried about bringing stray disease into his overly sheltered life.) with a long evening of traps and long drives to help... SCOTTSDALE STRAYS and their doctors are a really amazing gang. The whole group ended up too ill to save. His mom just was found dead, perhaps a heart issue, perhaps whatever the kitties had, but it was a real heart-breaker. Not just for me, but the overburdened rescue community. (I have tried to donate my art regularly and often allow them to use my images for fundraising as often as possible! EVERY community needs their stray cats and dogs cared for and it is a HARD job.)

Oreo.

He would get in way too many fights. Not only myself but his gang of foster families were taking him in to get stitched up and such. It was after a big tom with a big collar and fully displayed huevos started picking fights on a regular basis that the evil plan of just catnapping the new cat and having him fixed on the sly occurred to me in my dreams, that I figured to help Oreo at least but taking him out of the loop.

One day I put out his food, after calling the local vet and explaining that a neighborhood character NEEDED neutering and I would pay, I nabbed him and drove him down the road.

My favorite nurse nodded and together we walked bad to the doc and she said "neutering". Somewhat absentmindedly he prepped, anesthetized and Snip! Pop! He was out. The nurse gave him a distemper shot and when I got out the credit card, she just shook her head.

Off we scurried and I had him back at the food bowl in less than an hour, tail and foot in the air, trying to figure out what had just happened to him!

I just loved that guy!

And he would TALK TO HIMSELF

I see that in the very art post that I sold his portrait, I mentioned his odd habit of talking to himself and biting his feet.....

He would mutter a bit. He was not the Siamese that The Kid was, he had a regular cat voice. The original (when I first brought him home, all oozy and tiny, had a set of lungs that sounded like a siren all the way home!) was of serious Thai origin. Big "MEOWOW" in an oddly baritone. But the Dude, had his bird yammer, and a round mournful call when a cat would jump BACK over the wall.

I was used to cats talking... but his night antics were a bit distracting. Everyone used to laugh when I would tell them but he bit his feet, yelling at them all the time. Stood up, decided his tail was acting out of line, and fall on it an on the ground and wage war on himself.

Summers seemed worse but finally one 5 am, when he CHARGED into my bed, landed on my chest and HISSED right into my face, I decided when the vet opened, he was a-goin'!

Of COURSE he was the picture of health. Fat and sassy, the vet said it was "behavioral" . NO DUH!

For years I tried to figure what triggered it. He let up when the weather was cool enough to open a door and look into the night, but come the 100 degrees he would begin with long low rumbles and it would not let up.

He never actually injured himself, but he was hugely irritating to me and would look grumpily at me as if to say "YOU DID IT! NOW YOU STOP IT!" or something like that. He would telepathically yell at me. Like he thought I should speak cat!!!

A couple years later I tried again. I did figure his butt had something to do with it.

I have long hair. Longer than a woman my age really should (but I am an artist and I get special treatment :-)) OCCASIONALLY I could only describe them as streamers.....

The Old Kid made us give up icicles on Christmas because he would sparkle out both ends!

The dude liked to chew my hairbrush when I was gone.... you figure it out!

But that was not all. We thought it might be constipation.

So there was a year of Pumpkin. He really liked it for a while. Apparently (you cat fanciers should know this) a good source of roughage is pie stuff without the spices. It was going in and going out smooth as spit... but he kept yelling.

I finally got a good video of him. Two years ago, this was the ONE thing that helped the vet see he was in trouble. (My mom cried when she saw it.) Nobody believed it was all that bad. By the time I had this, I was not sleeping but one or two whole nights a week if I was lucky. This was taken at 2 AM:

Yeah, they call it Feline Hyperesthesia. Over sensitive and ..... well "Heebie Jeebies" says it all.

He Got Wide and Wonderful

This was one of the few from the best photo session. It was this day that the background image was referenced. He posed as a young man for the very first painting which SOLD to a friend on an internet art site THAT DAY....

Finally I had mastered that look of my impending demise!

This series even got me an article in Pastel Journal about my pet paintings. What didn't get published was a diagram of how the reflections in the room showed in his eyes.

My previous cats had been lucky to top out at 8 pounds. This guy was as big as a dog. I had a brief roommate with two miniature pups. He could not fit their harnesses. He was a great meatloaf of a cat.

A candid from those days:

I would use him as a model but he was never able to sit still. This is another view of his wonderful round jowls.

and the ever so flattering pose we ended up with from the session for the "Holiday Number"

You could fantasize he was a "Sumo" cat, but really, he was just wide.

And grumpy.

I do believe his demanding attitude was part of his charm in those days.

The Dude...Not Dude, or Mr. Dude..

Of course his teeth eventually grew in and I will say he was a bit calmer. JUST a bit.

It was not much of a joke, but I used to tell people his job was sitting around and plotting my demise. I have a clear glass topped table that used to be in front of a window. He would sit and stare at me . . . . resting . . . plotting . . . . .

And would be still and nearly statue-like until I pulled out the camera. Very few of my photos are in focus! He also messed with my mind a lot. If he could not come up with some sinister plot, he would MESS with me . . .

But that was perfect!

I am a bit of a hermit these days. I work hard as an artist, talk to myself and am up odd hours. The Dude gives me a reason to sleep through noises at night and hear the sound of my voice when I am tired of listening to the tv.

And this is the kind of cat that loves to sit in his bathrobe all day. When he was a teen ager, he would sit at the screen door and talk to his day (Oreo) out on the porch. He was a real shadow/mini me. I felt sorry that he had no friends. Lots of feline transients would hop over the fence. Including some siblings that his mom had behind our palm tree! We got them to rescue and while waiting to see if they were healthy and adoptable, the little wild kitty that I was sure was his mom, just died . . . . I have always wondered if her little high strung wildness was a heart defect. I am still afraid it may be a little of his issue. That is why I want to be sure he has all the tests before (IF) he gets his procedure!

. . . but I digress. . . .

By the time he was about two, he was as tall as his dad and had a lovely wobbly tummy that swung side to side when he ran. He hit 18 pounds and one of his favorite things was to jump on my tummy as I slept. . . . . .OOOOOPPPHHHH! He still loves to wake me up. Always JUST when I fall asleep.

His life was one of thinking too much and enjoying the time in between.

He IS The Dude.