Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Not happy

I mentioned before that our Grumpy Old Lady cat Patches had managed to injure her paws.  Yesterday we went to the vet because the toes seemed swollen and infected and discovered that the problem with her paws may not be an injury, but a symptom of a much bigger problem.  She may have systemic cancer.

There is a lump of some sort in one of her lungs and she has various lumps on her body.  The vet agreed that old cats (and dogs) are sometimes just "lumpy," and most of the lumps are just benign fatty tumors of one sort or another, but the thing on her lung makes everything suspicious.  They're going to do lab work and we'll know where to go from there.  Poor baby.  In the meantime, regardless of whatever else may be going on the priority is to get her toes healed.

The good news is that the antibiotics and the pain killers have definitely started to work.  She came and sat in my lap for a long time this morning while I was reading the news on the computer and stayed until Cinnamon got into my lap, too, crawled on top of her and bathed her to within an inch of her life.  Since Cinnamon was licking the fur on the back of Patches's head the wrong way, after a couple of warning growls Patches finally got disgusted and jumped down.   I think the pain killers were working, though, because Patches was sitting in my lap for about an hour with well-dilated pupils, purring away.  Kitty opiates.  Good stuff, apparently.

Anyway, we'll keep her comfortable and healthy as long as possible.  Poor baby.  And poor BikerDude.  Patches came with him from California when he moved out here, and she's like an old friend.

Meanwhile, Tweak has lost some weight, especially since her week on the lam, and she's definitely feeling friskier.  She has started to follow the boys around, but Kaos in particular is much more agile than she is, so where he will, say, levitate gracefully (more or less) onto my dresser, she will leap up, land with a slide and clear the deck of everything movable.  I find myself going from room to room picking up small objects from the floor next to every flat surface.

This morning, watching Tweak perched on top of my jewelry chest, we finally realized what she most resembles:  A penguin.  Check it out:



1 comment:

Lillyofmine said...

Poor thing. Cant say she didnt have a long healthy life though. I send my love yalls way.