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| Pop Pop had two helper monkeys help him with blowing out the candles. |
Celebrations continued this week at my in-laws' house. My FIL's birthday was Monday. Yesterday we all gathered to celebrate, and ate good food and had yummy cake.
My son was full of silly quotes yesterday. Like all parents, when I get irritated with my son, I call him by his full name. "Small Human Nonymous, let's go!" for example. So yesterday, he was apparently exasperated with me. He chided, "Mommy Human Nonymous, let's go!" I could not help but laugh :)
Later, we went grocery shopping. He would chant "Mahna mahna," expecting me to replay, "Doo dooo de doo doo!" If you need further explaination, see this:
Well, after about 10 minutes of this, I stopped answering. It's hard to read and sing different things at the same time, at least for me. Anyway, the Small Human then exclaimed, "My Mahna mahna is broken!"
Later that night, I got the rest of the family to laugh along with me as I recounted the tales of my silly boy!
Day 278: Bad News, Revisited
My plan when I graduated veterinary school was to find the two ugliest cats in the shelter, and adopt them. You know, the 15 year old, diabetic hyperthyroid cats, with mange? That kind. Instead, I ended up with three healthy (at the time), half-wild, aggressive cats that urine marked. They were not the friendliest cats in the world, but boy, were they beautiful!
Fast forward ten years, and I've got 3 of the sweetest cats ever. Well, at least when they're home.... The Gray Beast is fearless, and loves to "help" me around the house. The Red Beast is a slut. He loves everyone in the whole world, and purrs with minimal provocation. The White Beast is nearly as slutty as his red brother, and he loves to follow the Small Human wherever he goes. But as far as healthy cats? Well, not so much. I'm glad I'm able to take care of them, but I sure wish they'd keep their medical problems to a minimum.
I have defective cats. It's true. Red Beast also sports small cell lymphoma, hyperthyroidism, a heart murmur, and a food allergy. His siblings aren't too much better. The White Beast has inflammatory bowel disease, and is on prednisone for that. He also sports a heart murmur, and early cardiomypoathy. The Gray Beast had lymphoma, too, but not to the degree as the Red Beast. She also lost all the skin on one of her legs last year, and has had a skin graft. She now sports nipples on her ankle. Sweet.
My Red Beast was diagnosed with small cell lymphoma in 2008. We went through a regimen of prednisone and leukeran, and once again he became the fat red thing that he was. It wasn't without bumps. The Red Beast celebrated the Small Human's birth by pissing all over my house. So I put the cat on prozac. Then he stopped eating. I wasn't sure if it was from the cancer, the chemo, or the prozac. We almost switched him from the oral chemo he was on to the injectable kind. Luckily, it was the prozac. Bonus for the cat not resuming his inappropriate urination after I removed the offending drug.
When the Red Beast went into remission a year and a half ago, I had hoped that was the end of it. Then the weight loss started about 6 months later. This time, his abdomen was ok, but his thyroid level was high. The cat was so wired he was literally running up walls. His pupils would dilate until it looked like saucers replaced his eyes, and he'd howl and run full tilt at the wall. And go up. It was crazy. A few miligrams of methimazole twice a day put an end of that. And again, I thought we were good to go.
However, this past few months he's been sneezing off and on, and it would not go away with antibiotics. I finally brought him in to get reweighed last week, and discovered that the cat had lost over a pound. Hoping it was just his thyroid that needed tweaking, I ran bloodwork. The T4 level was fine, but his eosinophils were super high. Not what I'd expect with hyperthyroidism or lymphoma at all. Since he's been sneezing a lot, I worried that perhaps the eosinphilia was due to something up his nose.
I had a feeling that whatever it was that causing the Red Beast to lose weight, it wasn't a good thing.
I called the internist (We'll call her Dr. S.) to schedule rhinoscopy and a CT scan of my cat's skull. Six o'clock this morning, I dropped off my cat at the referral hospital today. Dr. S called me later and told me the good news - The Red Beast's CT and rhinoscopy both were normal! Huzzah! Then Dr. S suggested we repeat the abdominal ultrasound. The obvious answer here, of course, was that if something's causing my cat to lose weight, and it's not something up his nose, then see if it's one of his numerous per-existing conditions.
Dr. S. was spot-on. The Red Beast's ultrasound looked exactly as it did the first day he was dignosed with lympoma in '08. When I heard the news, I was at a play date for my son, with people that I barely knew. This meant that reacting badly was out of the question. The good news is that I didn't shout "Shit goddamn motherfucker!" in front of my kid. Gotta look at the bright side, right?
I suppose I should be thankful that the Red Beast has been in remission for as long as he has been. And I suppose I should be reprimanding myself for not thinking about the fact that forever remission is kindof a rare thing. Right now, though, I'm just sad. My poor cat looks so bedraggled, and that was before he got his fancy hair cut, courtsey of two IV catheter attempts, a blood pressure probe on his tail, and the abdominal ultrasound. Right now, all I can think of is that at 11 years old, I can't give up on him yet. If he was 16, I'd second-guess putting him on chemo. I'm not ready to think about which of my colleagues is going to euthanize him for me, when the time comes. I'm sure as hell not doing that myself.
Today's photo is of the Small Human in the waiting room at the referral hospital. I'm sure at some point I'll photograph my half-naked cat, but not today.
Tonight, I started the Red Beast back on prednisone. Tomorrow, we'll restart the leukeran. And I'll keep my fingers crossed that this simple combo convinces the lymphoma to take a hike, or to at least go into remission. At some point I'll consult with the oncologist again. If this doesn't work, then I'll need to consider a heavier-duty protocol. As much as I want the Red Beast to be alive, I want him to live a good quality of life. The whole point of the chemotherapy is to make him feel better. If it doesn't do that, then there's no point. Quality of life is much more important than the quantity of life. That's a bridge, however, that I'm just not ready to cross.
Here's hoping the Red Beast responds to chemo.
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