The Family

Didn’t want to write this yesterday. Didn’t want to face this or think about this or acknowledge this yesterday. But today is the next day, so here’s the update.

Two weeks ago, I noticed a small (pencil eraser) raised dark patch of skin on Grail’s underside. Took him to the vet. Vet found another three raised areas, but told me they could just be folds of the skin from the surgery – that as the extra skin inside is carted away by the body, the bits that are left would begin to feel more like distinct lumps.

We planned to do a small follow-up surgery to take one of the lumps and biopsy it.

To my unhappiness, the next week was out and the following week, the best day was Friday. Not what I wanted to be doing on my birthday; taking my beloved in for another surgery.

But over the two weeks, it became more and more obvious to me that surgery wasn’t going to happen. And on Friday, instead of doing any surgery at all, the vet did a physical exam and confirmed everything.

In two weeks, three small lumps right along the suture line have turned into a multitude of small lumps, coalesing in to about 4-5 larger lumps, which extend up to the shaved fur line. The vet could feel them extending upwards, under the ribcage.

Agressive rapid regrowth. Biopsies are unnecessary; it’s textbook fibrosarcoma. Future surgeries would just exacerbate the growth and decrease Grailing’s overall quality of life without doing anything at all for his quantity of life. 99.9% sure, said the vet. Then he gave me some other cherry phrases, such as “palliative care” and of course, that the best thing for me to do would be to take him home and keep him comfortable. And that there were options regarding Youth in Asia; we could do it at the vet’s office or at home, and that when it was that time I would know.
And starting next week, I have to start stage managing a show that I obligated myself to way back at the start of the season, and it’s going to take me out of the house every night for two and a half months, and I’m not even sure right now if Grailing has two and a half months. I’m going to do it, but I’m sure it’s the last show I’ll do for a while. I just hate all that time (and theatre’s been losing me for other reasons lately). And if they ask – if my attitude’s bad enough that they notice – I’ll tell them straight out that I don’t want to be there.

I’ve dropped Ren Faire this year (or they dropped me…uncertain). I haven’t gotten the e-mail notices I thought I should have gotten by now. But if they’ve dropped me off the list, I could easily remedy it if I choose – and I don’t choose, so however it started off I’m the one ending it. No NCRFaire this year.

I’m still keeping Grailing on all the supplements and foods. I know it isn’t helping at all, that it was all for nothing, but he does seem to enjoy it, and if it buys me just one more day….

The “good” thing is that the fibrosarcoma isn’t attacking any particular organ. It’s just some random cells run amok. So no organ failure, no sickness, just a gradual loss of energy as the cancer pulls food and other resources. As the tumor coalesces, the interior tissue will die and become necrotic, as we found in the first surgery, and some of the toxins released by the dead tissue will also weaken Grailing. But it will be a slow painless decline; no major trauma. One day, he’ll have lost energy to the point where he simply stops eating – and then I’ll know.

I’ve found a place that transfers photographs to cross stitch patterns – http://crosstitch.com/photo.html. Kevin thinks doing something like that might be bad for me; I think it might be good for me. We’ll see.

And that’s where we are. I started seeing a therapist last week – I didn’t need the vet to tell me the score, though of course the confirmation hurt all the same. I’ve found a local pet chaplain that helps people specifically with pet loss, I might go ahead and initiate that too.

Wish it was a better update for you guys. I didn’t say anything over the last several weeks, because I didn’t want to put it in writing when it was just a suspicion. But it isn’t anymore, it’s been confirmed. Grailing might not make it the full six months; the “average” survival rate the books gave. I’m realizing – but certainly not dealing with – the fact that he most likely won’t survive the year.

It’s been a very sad month.

Well obviously i do not know how to share a photo… I just posted a blank message, expecting Luke’s new haircut to be there….. Instruct me.

i keep talking about this cat tree place online, one that look really awesome

I give to you Cozy Cat Furniture.  I could soooo spend too much money here.

I’m reading a new book (this should be a familiar introduction by now) and ran across this funny little anecdote that made me feel much better about myself.

It’s a book on memory.  Starts with stories of people forgetting things, like names and dates and such.   Tells the story of one Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and founder of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

So … Sir Beecham is in a hotel, evidentally a nice hotel, and happens to meet an elegant woman that he recognizes but doesn’t quite identify.   She knows him, obviously, and they start chatting.   All the while, he’s trying to remember who this charming lady is, and then he dimly recalls that he thinks she has a brother.   So, hoping to jar his own memory, he asks how her brother is and if he is still in the same line of work?

“Oh, he’s very well”, the woman replies, “and still king.”

(direct quote from the book there)

So I laughed and laughed.   I have forgotten the names of many important people I’ve talked to, but so far none of them have been royalty.

But I suppose it worked .. I suppose it jogged his memory and he remembered who she was.  And then presumably excused himself from the conversation, the hotel, and the city in an attempt to find a deep enough hole to crawl into.   That’s what I would have done, in any case.

Well…Ramona sent us chocolates…not just any chocolates, truffles from The Chocolate Fetish.

We devoured, we raved, no truffle was left uneaten. So without further ado I give you our reviews and opinions:

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If at first you don’t succeed (at a good haircut)

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I recently discovered that Swarovski makes beads, not just the little crystal creatures. Some of them look really great…I am super excited!
I was thinking, the might make a lovely adornment for costumes!
linky to a seller

Pat is out of the hospital.  They did not find anything in the angiogram.  I wish they had.  Not something serious, but something that would have explained the problems.  They said he had some blockage and needs to lower his cholesterol, but it was not serious enough to require ballooning our or putting in a stint.

Maybe it was stress……   maybe it was something they didn’t find……    I don’t know.  Like i said, i wish they had found something simple so the hospital would have been worth it and we could all breathe easier knowing the problem was fixed.

Gossip….. It is hard to know when it is discussion and when it is gossip…. when it is a legitimate expression of concern and when it is gossip… when it is people discussing a problem for the purpose of finding a sloution and when it is gossip. It is a problem within my family, my brothers and sisters. I can understand how it happens… one person is upset or concerned and they talk to someone… and that person adds their 2 cents and passes it on to someone else. But, when is it gossip??? Sometimes the line is hard to define.

There is a current subject… I just learned that much of what i have been told and believed is, shall we say, incomplete. Whether that is strictly from insufficiant information or if information has been discounted as unimportant at some point and dropped, i do not know, but it makes me question everything i have been told. The thing that bothers me most is that i have passed along this incomplete information which decidedly slants things; I have made statements and agreed with conclusions; I have thought bad things and said so.

I am now trying to tell everyone the new information in an effort to make things right, but who knows how much good it will do. Some people have formed their opinion and do not wish to look at the new information that puts things in a better light.  I feel bad.

I prefer to givre people the benefit of the doubt, to think the best of people. I do not like realizing that i gossip……..