That air of gravitas

Diagnosis: spindle cell carcinoma. “Quite malignant.” “I’m so sorry,” the vet says on the phone after he’s given me the news. I say, “It’s okay, it’s not your fault.” I always say stuff like that. In this case I worry afterwards I sound too flip, but it is hard for me to feel emotion on command. I have to deflect attention away, protect my emotion so that I can feel it without having to perform it.

I feel relatively peaceful. We had a good week, cat-wise. During the surgery last week for the biopsy, the vet took a chunk off the tumor “the size of the top of my finger,” as he said. Cat was fine that evening, seemed to feel a little slow the next couple of days. But we nursed him very carefully. Petting and coaxing him to get him to accept the lozenges of meat rolled around his pills twice a day. Feeding him treats like tuna, which I’ve never given him before and which turns out he loves. Much petting and attention (not that he hasn't always gotten an overabundance of those things). He didn’t lose more weight and got some back. He was fluffy and happy. Contenment rolled off him in waves.

We had, in fact, one entirely pathos-free day: Wednesday. It’s hard to explain it. I thought it immediately: cat seems totally well. No long, contemplative instances of sitting and staring. No flopping over on his side when we petted him as if he’s grateful not to have to resist gravity. I think the posture of his head was different. My husband noticed it too: “He seems better.” For the whole day, he was just a cat.

Yesterday that part was already over and what I’ve begun to see as the cycle was rebeginning. The gums and leftover tumor places looked very red. The cat had again that air of gravitas. His shoulders felt very warm. Also he was extremely sweet. Actually I first began to worry it was starting when, first thing Thursday morning, he spread himself adorably across my chest as I lounged on the couch, and stayed there purring. Illness makes him an angel.

Last time, which I think was also a Thursday, the day of sweetness, heat, and red gums came just three days before I was freaking out that the tumor was the size of a golf ball. (An exagerration, of course.) So I expect it will become bad very quickly. When it’s begun to seriously affect his ability to eat even tuna and he’s losing tons of weight and becoming miserable, we’ll have him euthanized: it’s terminal, and I’d rather not have to watch him starve to death. When he licks his lips he makes a gluey sound – its rather awful.

But I do feel glad that we made him well for a couple of days. We all feel more loved because of it.

Don’t feel too sorry for us. Save that for after its over because we’ll need it more then.