Mom is Crazy and My Trip to the V-Hospital Today.

The trip to the V-hospital: They have bigger vampires over there than they do at v-lady. They took my blood again. That was all.

Last week and the week before my CBC’s were good. I was supposed to have my second chemo treatment today and it didn’t happen. Dr. L. called Mom to come and get me. (No, it wasn’t anything I said or did. Our vet tech, Stacy Ann, says my ‘bark’ is worse than my bite. She doesn’t take guff from me. She’s a lot bigger than Mom so she lets me complain up a storm ‘cause she already knows I won’t bite or scratch her.) No… my white blood cell count was low today, so Dr. L. thought it would be better to wait until next week. He says he’s seen this pattern in kitties a lot. Chemo is known to compromise the immune system, so, since my WBC was already low he didn’t want to risk making it even lower. He’s moved me to a once every four week chemo cycle.

Now, why is Mom crazy? You know what she just tried to do a little while ago? Shove a horse pill down me! Well, maybe not a horse pill, but it was a people pill.

She got tired and she’s preoccupied with doggy lady’s doggy, Misty. Misty went to the vet today for a lump that felt like mine which is right off to the side of her nipple. Her v-lady wants to do surgery too, but her x-rays found an enlarged heart.

Anyway, the people pill: an acidophilus capsule. Mom keeps the acidophilus (for me and Samsara) in the fridge, right next to the yogurt she puts on my Tylan pills. Great, they’re both white capsules and they look almost exactly like each other. The Tylan bottle is on top of our microwave oven.

The acidophilus, which is twice the size of the Tylan—and I’m not exaggerating—got covered in yogurt and made it all the way into my mouth. Mom realized the difference when my eyes started to bulge. I suppose if I didn’t choke first, it couldn’t have done any harm. (Of course, substituting acidophilus for my second dose of Tylan couldn’t have done any good either.) Mom usually opens the capsules and mixes the acidophilus powder into our food. I spit it out and I got an apology out of her.

Then she put the acidophilus into the wet paper towel she uses to wipe my mouth, forgot about it, and wiped my mouth. By the time she went to look for the pill it disappeared. I wasn’t wearing it and it wasn’t anywhere near where we were. She says the kitchen swallowed it. (What doesn’t that kitchen swallow!) I got to watch her, on all fours, crawling all over the kitchen floor again. We never found the pill. Do you know how many times she checked my towel and my coat and her clothes?

Thanks for your good wishes for my DDP. Mom was off updating my case study over the weekend and we didn’t see it till really, really late last night. And, thanks effurybody for your gifts. We would be lying if we said we had a moment to look at them. We will tomorrow.

Headbonks…

Week Two CBCs

I guess we didn’t want to jinx this by saying anything too early. Both CBCs, (last week’s and this week’s), have been really good and I’m set to go for my second chemo treatment next Tuesday. Yay!

My poops have been good and my energy level has been improving. Mom is happy to see me racing over to her again when she walks in the door and then racing off too, like I used to do. I’m doing more zoomies around the apartment too.

Mom was kind of concerned about me hipper-dippering around with my wet food at night. I just don’t like wet food all that much, so sometimes I leave it. See—I’ve got this routine down pat. Leave the food, have Mom put it away, and then beg like crazy—nyeh, nyeh….I’m starving. Feed me kibble! Giggles. She does.

It doesn’t hurt that Samsara forgets she’s eaten and squawks every time Mom walks into the kitchen. I just ride her coat-tails. If Samsara says we haven’t eaten, we haven’t eaten. Right? The only part I don’t get is why Samsara keeps nuzzling me under the neck. I keep telling her I’m not the head of the fodder department. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her I need to beg too. (But I do appreciate it when she leaves some of hers for me.)

And, you know what I did Sunday? Mom was baking again and since she was making cookies and muffins, she didn’t have enough space to put the muffin pan where I couldn’t reach it. Dang!! Those double-corn jalapeño muffins smelled great, and they looked so nice rolling all over the floor. Too bad she got them before I could. :(

Yay! Frankie’s Friends.

Mom got pawsome news late yesterday afternoon. Frankie’s Friends, Zeus Varis Trust has accepted me. We’ll be getting help paying for my chemotherapy. The treatments are going to be covered, the CBC’s are going to be covered and, if I need more surgery… Yay! They are the best! We are so grateful!

We still have to pay a $75 co-pay for each visit, there is a ceiling on how much they will pay out, and they are also paying for only the chemo-related stuff, but Mom is so relieved. It’s going to take such a load off her mind.

Other news, Tuesday will be a week since my first chemo. So far, so good. No more barfing. Mom isn’t sure it was me anymore either. She says she saw Samsara do it this morning. Mom also says that my poops look better than they have in a long time. She’s guessing the Amoxi Drops they sent me home with after my surgery are doing more than just handle post-trauma. She says my IBD has always responded well to antibiotics.

I ate my wet food supper slowly tonight, but I ate it and didn’t leave very much for Samsara. And, good news for me. Every time Mom goes into the kitchen Samsara starts squawking for food. I’ve been riding on Samsara’s coat-tails. Tee hee. I get extra too.

Our camera went on the fritz again—just inside the warranty extension the company gave her. They agreed to replace it this time. She heard that one before. We’ll see. We’re wondering if it’s going to take another couple of weeks before we receive the call tag for the return. Last time, back in August, we had to wait a whole month to get the camera back.

Mom is still ‘sdeezing’, as she puts it. She just went to make a cup of lungwort tea. This is something a lady who was into holistic treatments taught her years ago. The stuff was hard to find where we live. She finally got some (about 20 years ago—and has been using it very sparingly ever since). She says it’s the best. It tastes a bit like chamomile (pleasant, Mom thinks) and it dries out the nasal passages so you can breathe. Several years ago, Mom says you could only get it online in tincture form. She just checked—the herb form is now readily available. $25 buys you a pound. That’s a lot of tea. Not bad. We thought we’d mention it ‘cause it really is cold-season now.

Anyway, I’m not writing a book tonight. I just wanted to let you know about Frankie’s Friends. There really is such a thing as a guardian angel!

Purrs…

The Holidays and My First Chemo Treatment

It’s been a rough three weeks around here. Mom keeps dragging me to the v-lady. I think you all know about that by now. They found out I had breast cancer.

It all started with Mom poking around at my belly while she was giving me my meds. She says I don’t cooperate when she brushes me. She wants to know where to start combing, so she feels around looking for mats. That’s when she found it.

I had my operation on December 20th. Boy, I came home feeling kind of funny. I was so hungry and I couldn’t get to the bowl because of the lamp shade they made me wear on my head. I have an oval-shaped bowl; how was I supposed to get a round lamp shade over it? Is it any wonder the kibble went flying all over the kitchen? Mom decided to give me a break and took off the lamp shade while I was eating. She says most of the time I was a really good girl about letting her put it back on me after I ate.

The first two days after the surgery are a bit of a blur so I don’t mind Mom having called me her ‘loopy kitty’. Mom says I made her giggle and clutch her nose going ‘ouch’ the day after. I head-bonked her and the lamp shade hit her nose.

She stopped giving me pain killer two days after the operation. She overslept and boy was I hungry. I was bouncing around complaining like I usually do. She decided at that point I didn’t need the medicine any more. Too bad she didn’t take the lamp shade off me too. They made me wear it until this Monday night.

Mom really giggled when Samsara and I tried to join her in the bathroom. Samsara insists we walk shoulder-to-shoulder. Samsara walked into the bathroom easily, but because of the lamp shade I got stuck on the door-jamb. That’s not funny! It also wasn’t funny when she stayed home on Christmas with me. She thought it would make us both feel better if she tied some pretty ribbon around the base. I didn’t mind until Samsara tried to eat it off my neck. Mom took a couple of pictures, but I don’t think we’re posting them. I look pretty pathetic.

We went for my oncology consultation last Thursday and Mom decided over the weekend that we were going to move forward with the chemotherapy. The oncology doctor said he would have preferred to have put me under and taken out the whole lymph system, if my heart could have taken it. He says I might need more surgery somewhere down the line.

New Year’s Eve

Mom left the house for a few hours in the late afternoon on New Year’s Eve. She went to Manhattan to try to get some photos in the Times Square area. She was already home by 7:00. The police wouldn’t let her go farther than 49th Street and Seventh Avenue, but she could still see the building from which the ball drops. There were kazillions of people out, and people were being really nice. And, even though the police wouldn’t let her go where she wanted, they were also really nice about it. She posted the pictures on FaceBook.

Mom had doggy lady and Misty over for a short while and then she went next door with doggy lady to watch the ball drop on T.V. Samsara spent most of the time locked in the bedroom. It serves her right; she shouldn’t have stalked Misty. Before we even realized what was happening Misty disappeared under the sofa with Samsara in hot pursuit! Silly dog! She doesn’t realize all she had to have done was bark at Samsara—it would have scared her off.

First Chemo Treatment

By the time I had my chemo appointment this Tuesday morning you can bet I was fed up with going to doctors. I know, at this point, when I see Mom get up early and start rushing around she’s about to ruin my day. I go into hiding when she comes out of the shower. I goofed on Tuesday, though. I was under the sofa but I forgot to pull in my butt. Geeze, when Mom is determined…

The oncologist says I’m healing well and he took the sutures out. Then I got the first of the six chemo treatments he wants to do. It went okay. They administered via injection in my hind leg and sent me home with a bandage. Mom was supposed to take it off when we got home. I paid her back—I gave her a hard time. She thought she needed to cut it off and no way was I going to let her. She went over to doggy lady to ask for help—she thought doggy lady was going to have to hold my head and paws under a towel while she cut the bandage. As a last ditch effort, she tried holding on to it and I kept going. It worked! I walked out of it. Yay!

Mom is supposed to watch me for: decreased appetite, nausea, diarrhea and sneezing. So far almost none of that has happened. I also have to go back for CBC’s next week and the week after. They want to check my white blood cell count to make sure that the chemo isn’t compromising my immune system. They told Mom they can adjust what I’m getting if that starts to happen.

I was really hungry when I got home, and then really sleepy. I almost missed Mom preparing my next kibble. (Her next meds, that is. They need to be administered with food.) When Mom came into the bedroom looking for me she found me sitting up, asking myself if I just heard what I thought I heard. Then, after my supper, I got hungry again, so I bothered Mom until she gave me some more.

I was really hungry yesterday morning too. I wolfed my kibs down too fast and I barfed. That happens every time I eat too fast but it earned me another pill (Tagament). My wet food supper didn’t look so good yesterday evening and tonight and I only ate half. Mom gave me kibble after my last meds for the day and those tasted really good. This morning, no Tagament and no barf. Tee hee, Samsara took care of making the mess this morning.

And you know what? Mom has been trying to brush me. How many times have I told her not to brush me?!! She’s finding mats since I haven’t been able to clean myself. I’m giving her a hard time, but I’m also giving her lots of extra purrs and headbonks.

By the way, maybe they should be watching Mom for sneezing. She’s been sneezing an awful lot since she got home from getting me my meds yesterday. It was in the low 20’s and, giggles, she didn’t get car service. She had to wait for the bus.

Headbonks…

Oncology Consultation

Thank you so much everyone for your outpouring of love. I’m overwhelmed.

To put this into perspective: Colette is doing very well at the moment. She’s healing rapidly and seems to have a bit more energy than before her surgery. She’s affectionate, underfoot, begging for food, and trying to get away with cleaning herself the moment she’s finished eating and I haven’t yet caught up to the fact and gotten the e-collar back on her. And, for the reason that she’s so hell-bent on trying to groom herself, poor thing, she’s still in that lamp shade until this coming Tuesday at best. Her poops are returning to ‘normal’ and she gave me my first bathtub down-the-drain pee/zoomie yesterday.

Now on to the oncology consultation: Our vet said she got the tumor with a clean ‘margin’. Even though her x-rays show no sign of metastasis, that doesn’t mean the cancer hasn’t ‘spread’. I’ll explain, and, believe me, I’m learning as I go along. Adenocarcinoma is the most common form of breast cancer in cats. It is a very aggressive form of cancer that works its way through the lymph system. Because of the involvement of the lymph system, even if an excision was clean, it doesn’t mean that there wasn’t time for free radicals to make their way throughout the body. Right now, those cancer cells wouldn’t yet show up—not until they have the time to form more masses. And therein lies the rub.

Untreated, the oncologist places the chance for a new tumor showing up at greater than 50%. Untreated, Colette’s prognosis is 6 months left to live. With chemotherapy, the oncologist extends her life-span to between one and two years. The time could be further out than that, but, since I adopted her, there’s a huge question mark with regard to how long it was (how many estrus cycles) between her first heat and the time she was spayed. That plays a big role. I got her as a four-year-old. We have no idea if she was a breeding queen before, or if not, how long she went between her first estrus cycle and the time she was spayed. Our oncologist is taking that question mark into account in his prognosis.

Ideally, the oncologist would recommend a radical resection, putting Colette under general anesthesia to remove (as I understand it) all of the mammary ducts. More likely than not, this won’t be done. Colette has a heart murmur and was only put under local anesthesia for this lumpectomy because of the risk that general anesthesia presents for her. He didn’t rule out though, the possibility of additional surgery for her at a future date.

Colette will be getting four to six chemo treatments. Each treatment is administered once every three weeks.

When I questioned the oncologist with regard to whether or not the cancer was related to Colette’s IBD, he told me that it was not--so much for jumping to conclusions. I’m mentioning this because I was speculating in the last diary entry that it might be related.

The doctor thinks Colette might be a good candidate to get help with funding her chemotherapy. He has recommended that I approach Frankie’s Fund—a group that helps, and I put a phone call in to the group today—answering machine. They say they generally call back within one business day.

I spent some time on the phone with Natalie the NatCat’s Mom last night. Natalie’s Mom told me that she’s very pleased with how Natalie’s chemo treatments went and how well Natalie is doing. Comforting to know, we live very near each other and use the same ER/hospital. And, as it turns out, we’re both assigned to the same oncologist.

I’ve pretty much made up my mind to move forward with the chemotherapy. If Colette is willing to fight this, so am I. But I make one promise to my little girl: I am not going to let her suffer. When the time comes that she’s having more bad days than good days …

I keep saying we’re going to thank everyone, and somehow this hasn’t happened yet. Gee, I wonder why. :-) It’s already late again, so I haven’t had time to attend to p-mails or anything. Bear with me, please.

In the meantime, I (we—Colette and Samsara too) wish everyone and every fur a very happy and healthy New Year.

Hugs, headbonks and purrs…

Carol, Colette and Samsara

It Was/Is Cancer

This is Mom Carol. I’m hijacking the diary again. This is not our year. Biopsy results for Colette's mass: "This small multilobulated mass from the left side of the ventral abdomen consists of a malignant neoplasm derived from the epithelial cells of the gland i.e. an adenocarcinoma...." In English, the mass was cancerous. Even though our vet believes she removed the mass cleanly, this was an aggressive form of cancer and there is a high probability that cells have migrated. I have an oncology consultation scheduled for tomorrow at 11:00 AM.

The lab results say that there are areas where the tumor cells have “invaded or occluded lymphatics or venules,” which makes migratory activity highly possible. They go on to say that “feline mammary adenocarcinomas are generally aggressive malignancies that are invasive and frequently metastasize in regional lymph nodes and distant sites. These tumors frequently recur when incompletely excised.” They also say that Siamese cats tend to have a higher incidence of adenocarcinomas compared to other breeds…”

I think I covered the crux of the matter. Our vet believes that she was able to remove the mass cleanly, but because of the lymphatic and venule activity, it’s highly probable that cancer cells have traveled outside the mass. If I heard her correctly (and you can imagine by this time I wasn’t hearing everything clearly) she says that if it has spread, untreated, Colette would have somewhere between three months and a year left. She is strongly recommending chemotherapy.

Honestly, I wish I could say this was a complete surprise. It wasn’t. Colette was diagnosed with lymphocytic colitis two years ago and the lab results at the time suggested that sarcoma might be involved. In the past two years our vet has suggested doing an expensive, extremely invasive exploratory intestinal biopsy more than once. Since Colette was responding fairly well to her treatment regimen, we put this on the back burner. After all, I’ve already shouldered enormous vet expenses for both her and Marrakech. And three years down the line, I’m still not working.

This doesn’t mean I’m blaming myself for not doing whatever I could for Colette—far from it. I have been doing everything that I can reasonably do. (And given my circumstances, many people have told me I have already gone far beyond what is reasonable.)

The fact of the matter is that Colette is a kitty that has IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disorder) and it is thought that IBD stems from inappropriate immune system response. I don’t think it is unreasonable to say that this cancer is just the newest development thrown at us by the IBD. (One of the main functions of the lymphatic system is the transport of the immune cells to to the lymph nodes.) I haven’t been saying this here, but, as early as last year, I told our vet I was thinking this would be the kitty that was going to break my heart early.

My guess was if it wasn’t one thing it would be another. For my own sake, I’m going to list here what we already knew before this newest cancer and what else just showed up in her bloods/x-rays. She had: Lymphocytic Colitis and Plasmatic Enteritis—or IBD, Heart Murmur, Feline Rhinotracheitis, and Hyperthyroidism. Her x-rays/bloods just picked up onset Chronic Renal Failure and onset Asthma.

I’m also fairly certain that even if I had pet insurance for her (I don’t) the insurance company would have connected the dots and not covered any of this. I’m afraid I’m going to have to make a decision in the next few days over whether or not to pursue this aggressively with chemotherapy. The decision will need to be based both on the doctors’ assessments of her quality of life and life expectancy given everything that’s already going on, and on my finances.

Whatever I decide, my love for her comes first. And that love may have to take the form of letting this run its course without intervention.

For those of you interested in reading more about lymph function and lymph metastasis, below is a link to the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory at Harvard University.

Lymph Function and Lymph Metastasis

Mom Carol

Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz

Oh what a relief… it is for both me and Mom. For those furs who missed it, I peed at 2:00 this morning and I peed again this morning. It was my first time in 5 days. Mom treated it like we had won the lottery. Sheesh. You should have seen the line-up around the bathroom door. Mom and Samsara heard me scratching in the litter box and both of them came running. So much for a purrivate trip to the bathroom. They both were lined up around the doorways between the bedroom and the bathroom staring in at me.

Mom says she’s so relieved, that it’s like the best Christmas purresent I could ever give her. She says she would have tried to call a car service to take me to ER today. She didn’t want to take me out on account of how cold it is because of my shaved belly--my Buddha belly--no asking me for belly rubs for good luck, though, because of the sutures.

Mom says that she still doesn’t understand where I could have put it all for that long. She says I’ve been eating like a horse and drinking like a fish. The v-lady said to expect a possible ‘back-up’ on poop but this was a surprise to everybody.

V-lady had suggested that Mom put me by myself in a room with a litter box and no access to the bathtub last night. When we thought about it, we realized that wasn’t such a good move. Since the only rooms where we can shut the door are the bathroom and the bedroom, it would have meant locking Samsara out of the bedroom. I don’t think any of us would have gotten sleep if Samsara was locked out. When she’s unhappy about something she lets us know—loudly. That girl doesn’t shut up for one minute! Anyway, thanks effuryone who suggested putting tissue paper in the bathtub drain. Mom says that was a really good idea. It was one where we all could get some shut-eye too because Samsara wouldn’t be howling all night. We did that. Mom was really funny all afternoon yesterday. She kept going over to the bathtub to check the paper in the drain!

Speaking of poops and pees, because of the stress from the surgery, I took a step backwards with those. My poops aren’t horrible, but they’re not as good as they’ve been over the last few months. So, for the moment, I’m back to my every 8 hours med schedule.

Mom was going to go see her sister, Auntie Joany, today, but she decided that it was better if she stayed home with me. She had a nice day anyway, exchanging phone calls with friends and baking holiday cookies—Pfeffernusse or Pepper Nuts in English. She says next to Lebkuchen these are her favorite cookies. She says she even gets to eat them this time. The last cookies she gave as gifts to friends and to our v-lady and her staff. Giggles. She got a bit carried away with ‘sampling the merchandise’ this morning. She said she might borrow some of my Tagament.

It got a bit late by the time Mom put the holiday bows on us, so picture-taking didn’t go well--it never does when she uses the flash on the camera. We might try it again tomorrow. I would say bow or no bow, I’m Mom’s best Christmas purresent!

And speaking of purresents, we want to share something we think is really special: the Pachelbel Canon. This is our favorite piece of music any time of year, but especially around the holidays. Mom has already spent many hours searching for a ‘best’ performance of it—the one that sends her. While she really prefers a string quartet performance and found a sublime one on You Tube, the Philadelphia String Quartet, the quartet, unfortunately, has chosen to cut off the audio in the middle. She can’t say enough nice things about the love with which they play the piece, but alas…. Nevertheless, here is a superb performance by the Academy of St. Martin’s in the Field Orchestra.

Pachelbel Canon


Merry Christmas effuryone!

Headbonks…

P.S. I have my follow-up visit with the v-lady on Wednesday. I think I’m over the hump now and things should go well.

Post –Surgery Update

This is Mom Carol. I’m hijacking Colette’s diary one more time.

Colette is doing well. Under doctor’s orders, I already removed the bandages (much to my chagrin) on Wednesday morning. And, as usual, Colette decided the interview was over way before I was done. (She does this to me all the time when I’m trying to comb out her fur.) She jumped (egads!) off the bed, with half the bandage still attached to her and with me trailing after her as fast as I could go bent over double holding on to the half I removed. Cattitude returning.

Yesterday, I was sitting on the sofa and it was clear her next move would be another jump. I lifted her on and took a very grateful Colette’s headbonk, e-collar to the bridge of my nose. Ouch! Two minutes later, end of interview. She jumped off the sofa. (Egads!)

I took her off the pain killer this morning. There was no more need for it. I woke up way after her next dose should have been administered. She was underfoot and happily demanding I feed her. She ate like a horse (as she’s been doing since she first arrived home).

I’m not sure if she’s doing this to make a point, but I’m constantly being e-collar head-bonked in the leg. She’s ever so much happier when I take it off to let her eat. (I noticed tonight that she’s figured out how to drop the lampshade over the bowl so she can eat with it on. Getting water was never an issue for her.) She’s also quite happy with all the extra head scritches. Psychosomatic , I’m sure—she’s probably more trying to paw the e-collar off her head than getting an itchy neck all the time. I get tons of purrs when I scratch her itches, though.

I posted a couple of photos. Little did I imagine when I took the photo of her taking off her witch’s hat for Halloween, that it would give her some practice in accessory removal. These photos were snapped on Wednesday and Thursday.

Now, one question, and I already phoned the vet’s office about it this morning. A bit of a preface first. Before all of this started with the enlarged nipple, Colette used her litter box for only one thing: poop. Pee was something one did directly down the bathtub drain making sure that it truly was down the drain: wipe your paws on the plastic shower curtain liner and explode out of the bathtub for a zoomie. (I’ve never had a problem with that since I take showers—the water from the shower rinses exactly where she’s wiping her paws.)

The behavior changed when the nipple problem started. At first I thought it was Samsara soaking Colette’s litter box—no, it was Colette soaking her own box. Her bloods a few weeks ago picked up that there are onset renal issues. Okay, now on to my point. There has been no pee in Colette’s litter box since Tuesday morning before I brought her in for the surgery, I haven’t seen her in the bathtub, and there is no inappropriate pee anywhere!!! The vet tech also thought it was odd and told me to watch her.

She’s drinking like a fish. Could she have switched back to the bathtub drain? Is she in the bathtub while I’m asleep or out? I left the house for short periods of time on Wednesday and today.

I need to call the vet back in the morning. Unless I find pee in the litter box by tomorrow morning I’m going to have to say the same thing as I did today. Scratches head.

We’ll keep you posted.

Colette is Home

Hi effurybody, this is Mom Carol. The surgery went well and Colette is home, albeit, really out of it.

She arrived home safely, thank you Natalie the Nat Cat and Orange Ruffy’s Mom and Daddy. Ruffy’s Daddy picked us up from v-lady and then we went to get Ruffy’s Mom from her job. We don’t know what we would have done without you. Thank you so much!

Colette arrived home with a ravenous appetite and an e-collar getting in her way. The doctor wanted us to restrict her intake the first few hours anyway, so the e-collar worked out rather well. She was having such a devil of a time with it and she was so desperate to get to the kibble that kibble went flying all over the kitchen.

She’s quite wobbly but she doesn’t want to be on a blankie or in her bed. She’s resting on the carpet in the living room, more content to be left alone than fussed over. I’ll be keeping a close watch on her—if need be, the puppy training crate is still here and can be put to use. The vet sent us home with antibiotic and pain-killer for her to start using tomorrow morning.

Good on Colette—she lost a bit of poop on the kitchen floor, realized it, and successfully went to use the litter box on her own.

My gut feeling is that we caught this just in time. Our vet confirmed what I thought I felt: the mass behind her nipple had grown from about an eighth inch areola to a half inch areola in the space of time between her x-ray a week ago and now. Our vet removed the nipple and the mass behind it. The mass is being sent to the lab for a biopsy and we should have the results in four to five business days.

Thanks for all your purrayers and gifts. We haven’t been around much over the last week. I’ve been trying to play catch-up after the show I performed in on Thursday, and I’m still trying to catch up—I’m in it for the long haul with the Christmas cards tonight.

We’ll be back on-line sporadically over the next few days and will thank you all properly for your gifts as soon as I can come up for some air.

Mom Carol

Update on My Surgery.

The blood pressure cuff that the v-lady needed finally came in on Friday, but Mom and the v-lady didn’t hook up until Monday (because of the v-lady and not us).

My surgery is now scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Since Mom was performing this evening (Thursday) she was afraid that she couldn’t be around enough for me this week. The v-lady agreed that it would be better to do it next week.

In the meantime, Mom got two chuckles when she was on the phone with v-lady and our vet tech. They called us just as Mom got home on Monday. Samsara and I were making so much noise in the background they couldn’t hear each other (my voice is actually pretty quiet, though). When they asked what was going on, Mom told them that they were listening to us singing the ‘Feed Me Chorus’.

Among other items, (I’ve always wanted to say that!), we got home from the vet last week and Mom left my travel bag out in the living room with the side flap open. She keeps a blankie in there for me. Samsara decided she was going to sleep in it! She’s always in it. It’s going to smell like Samsara by the time I have to use it again!

Mom was also marveling, both with v-lady and to herself, about how smart I am. Well, why wouldn’t I be smart? There’s food involved at the tail end of this, (a pun, my word!). I hear Mom rattling around all the stuff while she’s preparing my meds, then I hear the lovely “clink, clink, clink” of kibble hitting my bowl. I show up in the kitchen for my meds. Mom calls it our “even-exchange” program. She wraps me in a towel and presses on my hips and tells me to sit. It’s more comfortable for both of us if I sit, so I do. But the one that really surprised Mom the other night was when Samsara left some kibblies in the bowl. I thought she was going to give me a really hard time with that, so I sat there staring longingly at the bowl. I didn’t dare touch it. You never know… Mom was washing the dishes, and that usually means a bit of a shower coming my way if I try to get the food Samsara leaves behind. I swear, I didn’t touch it till she told me it was okay. (She really did wait.) Mom sounded so sweet when she gave me the go-ahead. :-)

Anyway, sorry we haven’t posted anything until now. The ol’ secretary has been really busy. Then, this evening, she left the city at 12:30 and hit a train delay and didn’t get home till 2:00 AM. Pfsst! We were starving and I hadn’t had my meds either.

P. Esss… Mom says to tell you all the show went really well. Mom says she’s sleeping in tomorrow and then she has to hunker down and take care of things like holiday cards and stuff.

We’ll keep effurybody posted.