My Weblog: The 12-pound Victory

By Elaine Viets

We got the report this week. We hope you’ll join our celebration.

Our cat, Mystery, is cancer free.

We’ve fought more than three years to save our copper-eyed Chartreux, a sweet-natured gray cat with thick fur.

Mystery was only eight when she developed intestinal lymphoma. She couldn’t keep her food down.

We took her to our vet, who sent her to a critical care hospital. The vet suspected cancer, but surgery was the only way to diagnose her.

As Don and I signed the papers for our cat’s $2,500 surgery, I said, "There goes my new couch."

"You didn’t really want that couch, did you?" the nurse said

I did. But I wanted our cat more. While Mystery was in the hospital, Harry, our striped rescue cat, howled all night. He missed his cat pal. Don and I were more determined to save her.

After surgery, Mystery’s weight dropped from 13 to 9.6 pounds. She was a sack of cat bones. But she started feeling better.

I remembered the heartbreaking morning at the vet’s office when we saw two gray-haired women holding their long-haired orange cat and crying. "We have to put her to sleep," one woman said, tears running down her face. "She’s very sick and we can’t afford to pay her bills."

If Don and I had had children, or if we’d been sick, then Mystery might have met the same fate.

But we could afford her care, even chemotherapy at the Animal Cancer Care Clinic in Fort Lauderdale. The animal oncologist promised our cat wouldn’t have the terrible symptoms that people experience during chemo.

"If she’s in pain," we told her doctor, "it’s time to end it. We don’t want her to suffer."

We could handle her chemo bills: If we canceled our vacations. If we didn’t go out to dinner. If we didn’t buy a new TV. Now, when we want to watch TV, we work out in the condo gym. It’s good for our health. And Mystery’s.

And Mystery did get better. She gained weight. She chased her cat pal, Harry, around the house and played with yarn balls.

She saw the oncologist every four weeks, then every six weeks, then every two months. For three years.

And the bills mounted: $400.50 for blood tests, biochemical profiles, Leukeran pills and Depo-Medrol injections. Bills for $328.70. After a few months of this, a bill for $300.88 seemed small.

I tried to ignore that distant whirring I heard in my mind – the sound of my hardheaded German relatives spinning in their graves. They would be horrified we’d spent so much on a sick cat.

But people’s relationships with animals have evolved in the last 100 years. For my great-grandparents, cats were working animals. They were mouse catchers who lived in the barn or the yard. My grandparents felt the same way, though they might let the cats sleep in the garage in cold weather. For my parents’ generation, cats were the animals who lived in the house. But you didn’t let those creatures sleep in your bed. When they got sick, it was adios.

Our cats sprawl all over our bed and they both snore. When Mystery didn’t feel well, she slept in my hair.

Our cats are not our children. But they are part of our family, and we give them good medical care.

And this time, chemo worked. You can see the only side effect in the photo. Her black whiskers turned white.

Mystery’s report this week said she "looks good with . . . no evidence of intestinal thickening or mesenteric lymphadenopathy." She’ll take steroids every three days for maintenance but Mystery is in "complete remission." Her weight is a healthy 12.2 pounds.

We donated her leftover chemo pills to someone who needed help caring for a sick pet.

Mystery beat cancer, with a lot of help.

We hope you’ll celebrate our twelve-pound victory.

***

Win a free hardcover. I’m giving away my first Dead-End Job Mystery that was in hardcover, "Murder Unleashed." Enter to win by clicking Contests at www.elaineviets.com

Comments

Elaine, I'm so happy for you and Mystery. We'd do the same for any of our family of three cats.

Kathy/Kaitlyn

Posted by: Kathy Lynn Emerson | March 12, 2015 at 06:07 AM

Cheers to Mystery, Elaine! May she enjoy many more lives, and may your bank account recover fully.

Posted by: Karen in Ohio | March 12, 2015 at 06:10 AM

Double thanks, Kathy -- for celebrating and for saying you'd do the same.

Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 12, 2015 at 06:54 AM

We hope both will live long and prosper, Karen.

This is wonderful news, Elaine. I am so happy for you all!

Posted by: Mare F | March 12, 2015 at 06:55 AM

Mystery is celebrating by clawing my poor, battered couch.

Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 12, 2015 at 07:00 AM

Elaine, I'm so happy for you and Don and Mystery! Our dog Annabelle has been in remission from lymphoma for five years now. Her only side effect was to lose eyelashes that grow so long, we have to cut them. But they grew back. We put the treatment on a credit card that we're still paying off, but we're not sorry. Every day is a miracle. I'm glad you're having your miracle, too!

Posted by: krisneri | March 12, 2015 at 07:28 AM

Thanks, Kris. Glad Annabelle's treatment worked. Another victory!

Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 12, 2015 at 09:03 AM