Monthly Archives: January 2016

by Ramona

Mileva

Well.

As everyone knows, Mileva has been having trouble for some time. She had slowly worsening kidney issues diagnosed back in North Carolina, which I think accelerated due to age and the stress of a new alpha cat and a baby in the household.

She was also having issues with arthritis, and of course the stress of having her food moved around all the time as we tried to find ways to keep Eleanor out of it.

So we’ve known her time was coming.

This morning she started vomiting blood. Not huge amounts, and it stopped and she seemed fine … but cats are going to seem fine for as long as they can fake it. It was enough of a sign for me that things were worsening for her to that ‘quality of life’ point.

So we had her put down today.

I hate it, and I hate that it was necessary. As one always does. But I sincerely believe it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

I miss her, of course, and tonight is going to be especially hard (we didn’t have a cuddle every night, but night time was cuddle time when we could).

Mileva's last portrait

Mileva’s last portrait

by Ramona

Half-way mark

We are over half way. Through the chemo, at least.

After the chemo we have a month of radiation. But before the chemo we had a month of diagnostic tests, so sure – we’re half way there.

There are several hopeful signs.

Most importantly, they did a PET scan and it came back very good. It didn’t find any overt signs of cancer, and just one potentially suspicious looking node around the area where all the hot spots were previously, and it’s much smaller than anything they found before.

On a scale of 1-5, we were given a 2. The dr says that 1 and 2 are both highly favorable.

Joseph has been having some numbness in his extremities and some fine dexterity issues following chemo – the results from the PET are good enough that the dr halved the chemo drug that usually causes those side effects. It’s 4 days after chemo, and the numbness is only barely present (this is when it would be peaking). So good there, too.

The other good thing is the white blood cell count. We had seen his levels drop so precipitously after each treatment – it was something the previous clinic delayed treatment for. Two treatments ago, his white blood cell count started at 1.9 (“low” is under 4; normal is 4.5 to 10) and the dr just said to go ahead with the chemo. We were concerned that his levels would reach ‘cannot be measured’ territory – 0.0001 or something. But his levels before this round were steady at 1.9. Like this is the sustainable low, and it isn’t going to crash down too much lower than that.

It’s still terribly low as we continue through the heart of cold season. But is is comforting to think that there is a immune system there, even if it’s getting pretty beat up right now.