Wow...Seventeen

Seventeen years ago, around 3:30 in the afternoon, I started this blog. I had no clue, really, what I would do with it other than make fun of my people. The Woman had notions that I would share my world views, but really, what's funnier than people and the stupid things they do?

I think it was after we hit "publish" on the first post that we began searching for other cat blogs. I mean, if I had one, there must be others, right? We spent hours looking and found lots of blogs about cats, but none written by a cat. It felt like I'd stumbled on a private island, which is cool and all, but private gets boring after a while. I wanted more.

The very first post...typo included

Visitors trickled in at first. Friends of the Woman poked in to see what was going on, and some of them shared the blog link. But it didn't take long before the spread of it was more organic and people to whom we had no personal connection began visiting. Some got in the spirit and commented as their cats. Some got the joke and started blogs for their own cats. It became a thing unto its own self: there were suddenly tons of cat blogs as others followed, and before I knew it there were cat blogs started by cats who had never even heard of mine.

There was a real Cat Blogosphere, and I made friends.

More importantly, I think, the Woman made friends. Friends that have turned into genuine, in-real-life friends, some of the best friends she could ever hope to have.

I wish the commenting system I used in the beginning was still there--Blogger originally didn't have their own and we had to use third party commenting--because there were some great conversations that happened in the comments. 

As the Cat Blogosphere exploded in size, it turned into Way Too Much Fun. There were house trashing parties--of course we teleported to each others' homes where we enjoyed niptinis and mountains of food--and we even had the Cat Olympics. We opened chat rooms so that we could talk to each other in real time. We celebrated together, not just holidays but the birth of sticky people, new furry household additions, marriages, and milestones. And we mourned together as the friends we grew to love left us early to run off to the Bridge, as our People lost treasured family, and we cried together.

Some of you guys have been here from the beginning, from the time after I lost Hank the Dog (which happened a few months before the blog began) and were here when Buddah came to live with us and damned near killed me with his cooties. You saw him grow from Buddah Butt to Buddah Pest, and listened to all my complaints about him.

I miss him, doods. I never thought I would, mostly because I never thought he would go first, but here we are.

You suffered through all the M-words with me. And there were a lot.

I gotta admit, the idea that I would still have this blog even five years from the day it began, never occurred to me in the beginning. I especially never would have thought it would launch a career for me, even if I did piggyback off the Woman's. 

I never could have conceived of all the friendships that would come from it, not for me and not for the Woman. She loves her friends. Not just, like, the way people love Cheetos or new shoes; she loves them.

Doods...I am so grateful.

For every one of you who found me so early on, who have stuck with me, who stumbled in along the way and who played along, got the joke, for whom this all became real, who helped their own kitties begin their own blogs...I am grateful.

Thank you for 17 awesome and amazing years.

Now let's squeeze out a bit more...

Today...is good

The Woman thought today was going to be a bad day for me because of all the poking and prodding of yesterday, along with it being the last day before I get my appetite medication again. But so far it's been good. I've eaten pretty well--it's not even 3 pm here and I've probably had 6 or 7 ounces of wet food--and I'm moving around.

The little cat thingy (see yesterday, bottom of post) is my new favorite spot, and I've been napping on it, getting down to eat and drink, getting back up, and I even got to say hello to the pest control dood through the window (things like that don't bother me anymore. The Woman says I have, like, zero farks to give now.) She bought this for me because she felt bad about taking the cat trees away, but doods, this is awesome. The cup is bigger so I'm more comfortable when I curl up, and I can still see out the window thanks to the box the Man made, that it's sitting on top of.

Since I get my meds tomorrow, she expects it will be a big food day, like a can an hour after it starts working, and I'll get something right up until she goes to bed...she'll leave two plates full for me so I have food overnight. Well, she does that anyway, because what if I get hungry? The rule now is Don't Let The Cat Be Hungry. I might even gain some weight.

Remember when I started this blog? In three days it will be 17 years. Back then, I was "14 pounds of sleek black and white glory" but I managed to push that up to nearly 19 pounds. At the stabby place I weighed in at 8.5 pounds and was probably down to 8 at one point. I'm allowed to get as fat as I want now...I have a super high metabolism these days because of my thyroid, but the doc said this mass is probably contributing to it, so yeah, eat whatever I want, when I want, as long as the People can figure out what that is. 

Yesterday the Woman opened THREE cans trying to figure out what I wanted. One got tossed out because of the way I ran from it, but the other two got left on my bedroom floor, and I grazed on them both (even the one I hadn't wanted) until bedtime when I got two new cans.

So, paws crossed that tomorrow is as good as today. 

Oh, and I did pee outside the box a couple times, but once was in the middle of the night and I just didn't feel like walking all the way down the hall, and the bathroom is right next to my bedroom and there are puppy pads on the floor just for that. Luckily, no one gets upset by it. The Woman has said "please don't" a couple times when she thought I was going to pee in the living room, but when I did she just shrugged and said she owns stuff to clean it up and I'm not hurting anything.

We'll see what she says if I ever pee on her bed...

Dang, they really did shove a needle in me

Do I look annoyed? I was annoyed. This was taken this morning, when someone should have been feeding me, but after a night of NO FOOD WHERE I COULD GET TO IT, they did not. And then they compounded it by shoving me into the PTU, then to the car, and I wound up at the stabby place.

Apparently this time no one cared if I peed all over everything. But right off the bat I was manhandled and STABBED, then left alone for a little bit while I began to feel sleepy and saw the sound of colors. For reals, doods. All the pretty colors.

I wasn't, like, under major anesthesia, just kinda nicely floating while the vet flopped me onto a table whereupon he took a picture of my insides. Worth noting: everything is where it belongs. But he didn't note a break, and he did see a mass, which meant I was getting stabbed again with a longer, more intrusive needle.

I was too loopy to really give a damn, and after he was done I took a nice long nap in my carrier, which was placed inside a cage to protect me from all the other animals. I suppose they could have just put me in the cage, but my PTU is nice and comfy and they know that given a choice, that's where I want to be.

Long story short...the mass is a soft tissue sarcoma. Stabby dood says it's typically a slow growing one and also doesn't tend to metastasize, so there's not a lot of worry that I'll wind up with is spread throughout my body (it's possible, just not likely.) But it will grow. And because of that, the People will count my good days and my bad days, and decide what I need most based on that.

For now, I'll get an appetite stimulant and nausea meds (one that has a bit of an analgesic effect) and if the pain seems to be getting to me before I stop eating, he might put me on Gabapentin. Right now I have more good days than bad, but I gotta be honest guys, the bad days are pretty bad. I don't want to eat and I pee all over the house. But the good days I eat and I use the litter box, and I seek out the Woman's lap and she says I'm almost my old self.

I'll probably spend a lot of my time here. They took the cat trees away because they were afraid I would hurt myself trying to get up high enough to see out the window, but they replaced it with this.

I can see out the window if I want, and it's easy enough for e to get onto. If the foot stool starts to look too tall, the Man will build another box for me to use as an additional step. I really dig this...the little cup is bigger than the one that was on the cat tree, and I can snuggle in and sleep really well.

So.

It's not great news, but it's not the worst news, either. I still have some time, whether it's weeks or months, and I know the People were scared they would have to say goodbye to me really soon. Or even today. 

They promised they're going to spoil me as much as they can, so I'm looking forward to that. I get to eat whatever I want, when I want, as long as they can figure out just what it is I want. If I want a lap, I get a lap, no matter what they're doing. And if I ask for the fireplace, even if it's warm, I get it.

Pretty spiffy way to live, I think.

In Honor of the Pest

I've been thinking a lot about what I could do in honor of Buddah, something tangible that could make a difference. I could write about him until everyone started yelling at me, but I'm pretty sure that's not the difference he would want me to affect.

But then I thought about our book, Interview With a Pest, and how Buddah came to live with us. And I knew.

All of the royalties from the sale of that book from the date it came out to the end of November will be donated to the SPCA we adopted him from.

I know a lot of y'all have already bought it, so I won't spend that money when I get it, so if you could pass the word along, I would appreciate it. This particular SPCA has done a lot of good for the community. Not just adopting out cats and dogs, but when they have space the rescue animals from kill shelters, and when Northern CA was hit with fires all around, they really sprung into action to help, all while evacuating the shelter because of fire encroaching them.

Buddah was one that they rescued from a kill shelter. We never would have known he existed otherwise.

I would really like to cut them a huge check in December. So please share this. It doesn't matter what platform you get it on--print, Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo--I will donate everything we earn from it.

We are adjusting...

No one likes the new norm, but we're slowly adjusting. Buddah's ashes came home yesterday, and the People bought a very nice urn for him. It's a black kitty sleeping in a basket...once they have it set up, I'll show you. 

But.

THEY TOOK ME TO THE STABBY PLACE WHEN THEY WENT TO PICK HIM UP!

All I did was pee on the bathroom floor...and then in the living room...and all the sudden it's OMG TAKE HIM TO GET STABBED! And doods, I totally got stabbed. The stabby guy stole a bunch of blood and sighed super hard when I peed all over everything because he wanted it for himself, and all for what? I've peed on things before and no one got excited. Sheesh.

But...I heard the People talking today and apparently my blood looks fine for an old man with thyroid and kidney disease, and there was no sign of an infection. So now the stabby guy wants to get an x-ray of my rear left left because I may or may not have broken it back in July, which could be why I occasionally pee outside the box. He felt a mass back there but it could be anything...a knot from a break, or even something else. If the x-ray doesn't show a break, he'll do a needle biopsy.

The Woman is not concerned that it might be something else, because of the timeline. In July, I tried to jump onto the footrest of her recliner and didn't quite make it, landing pretty hard. I got up and walked away, but it was a couple days later that I went through all the OMG HE'S GOING TO DIE stuff, when she found me in the closet passed out with my face in my food dish. 

She thought then that I was having some pain, but let's just say I was a bit less than cooperative at the stabby place, so there was no blood work, no x-rays taken. She watched me closely, and noted improvement, slowly, until I hit a point where it wasn't bad at all...right at the same point she always felt better after she broke something.

So I have days when I don't eat a lot because I kinda hurt, and she thinks that's what the next exam will show. I probably did break that leg. And since it bothers me sometimes, those are the days I pee outside the box. She says that's perfectly okay because she owns a bunch of Kids N Pets to take the smell away, but she kinda hopes I stick to the puppy pads that are now covering the bathroom floor.

I am also getting something that will hopefully make me hungrier, because my weight is way down, and they want me to gain some back.

I ate well today, though. I had 6 ounces overnight (she's leaving me 2 full cans in my room every night now) and I've probably eaten 4 since 8am and it's only 5:20pm and I'll get offered at least 6 more ounces before bed time. I think they want me to eat a lot more than that, though.

In any case, we're doing okay here. Everyone misses Buddah a lot, but we're okay.

Today is a better day

 

After yesterday and feeling like total krap because of those two absolute jerkwad units, we feel better. We're still not happy but we felt every bit of Mojo y'all wished and it helped a lot.

I think what helped the Woman the most was typing out the things we both needed to say. She's had an undercurrent of guilt, peppered with some doubt. Like, what if? What if the decision was made too soon? Why did it have to be that day? Why not one more?

The people had been saying out loud, "he's just not eating" but as we sat here and wrote, the truth bubbled up. It's not just that he wasn't eating. He was starving. And to let that go on would have been cruel.

If the meds he was on were going to work, they would have by then.

Everything settled with her after that. The doubt slipped away. So she thinks that while it hurt, the accusation was actually a blessing. It made her face things, and accept things, and while she's still sad, she's okay.

I think I'm okay, too. I keep looking for him, even though I know he's not here. I peed on the blanket he'd been on just before he left. And now I'm sleeping on his favorite cat tree, though not in his favorite spot. I probably would, but he liked the top level and it's just not safe for me to make that leap, and I know it.

For some reason it made the Woman happy to see me there. She and the Man almost took both cat trees out of the house on Thursday but just weren't ready, so now she's doubly glad they waited. I haven't used the other one yet, but they're leaving it in place to give me a chance to use it, too.

I'm making an effort to be not so grumpy because they really don't need that right now. I even got the Woman to laugh at 3 o'clock this morning. She woke up and got out of bed when she heard food calling to her, specifically cinnamon toast, and I jumped onto her lap and started eating it from the other side she was biting into.

The big surprise was that she didn't stop me.

BTW, cinnamon toast is awesome and if you haven't had any, get some. I have high hopes for a few more bites tonight.  

I'm a couple kinds of mad right now, guys

Like, the kind of mad where it would be easy to blow up at someone and start this nasty grudge thing, slinging litter box contents at each other online, where other people get in the crosshairs. But I'm going to do the petty thing instead, and blog about it, where the instigator has no real recourse because I've already blocked them on Facebook and will delete any comment they make here. Because I'm mature like that.

I'm probably going to use things off the Bad Word List. Fair warning.

To paraphrase... "You knew Buddah was sick and that's why you released Interview With a Pest when you did. That's unfair. Because if you didn't know he was sick then you didn't give him enough time before you had him put down, and either way, that makes you awful."

No, we did not know Buddah was sick when the decision was made to release IWAP ahead of schedule. The biggest reason for that push was because everyone feared *I* was going to die soon; we had no idea about Buddah. We were all counting on him being here for years after me. What would have been unfair, I think, was publishing it when planned, in December, had I died before then. That seems like rubbing salt in a whole bunch of wounds.

We had fewer than ten days with Buddah from the day we learned how ill he was until the day we let him go. We had less than two weeks from the day he started throwing up and when he stopped eating. At the beginning of 2020, he weighed 16 pounds. In August, he weighed 13. The day he was diagnosed, he weighed 12. The day he died, he weighed under 10.

Could we have given him a few more days? Maybe. But at what cost to him? He couldn't make himself eat, even on an appetite stimulant, and even though he clearly wanted to. 

Buddah was starving to death. How much more time should we have let that go on? Days? Weeks? 

He was stumbling. He fell from the back of the recliner and was lucky he didn't break his neck. He sat on the floor and we could see his entire upper body pulse with each heart beat.

Did he deserve to go through more days of starving and feeling horrible, just so we could keep him?

We wanted him to live, but the awful reality is that he was never going to get better, and he was starving. The past few days I've been wandering around the house, looking for him, smelling him, peeing all over everything because I cannot find what I'm looking for. I'm super old, too, so half the time I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, just that it should be there and it's not.

My people are broken, so how fucking DARE you suggest they let him go too soon. 

And to the twatwaffle who suggested to the Woman that she wanted me to die instead of him...go crawl up inside your own ass.

She didn't want either of us to die. The reality is that I probably will soon and she hasn't even come to terms with that, so your suggestion was about as hurtful as it gets, and I am having a very hard time not wishing horrible things happen to you.

I accept that those kind of thoughts sip through brains--did they do enough, could they have done more--but holy pope on a pogo stick, those are the thoughts you don't say out loud to the ones who are hurting. Keep that shit to yourself, and let us grieve.

Doods...damn

 

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I was supposed to go first, to wait at the Bridge for him. I practically promised him, and even though we talked about the possibility he would go first, no one believed it.

Buddah was the mischievous little boy, always the baby cat no matter how old he was. Even a couple weeks ago he played THoE by himself, racing down the hall into the office and up the bookcases to the top of the TARDIS. His downturn was so sudden, so unexpected, that it feels wrong and unfair. But he tried hard; he took the medications even though they tasted bad and he only bit the Man once. He tried to nibble the food they set down for him, despite feeling nauseated. And last night and today he snuggled with the People, going back and forth between their laps.

I stayed out of the way, because this was not my time to interfere.

Earlier today he fell off the back of the recliner, and since he’s been unsteady on his own feet—the Woman took UP away from him last week because it was no longer safe—and when she heard herself tell the Man that they needed to take the cat trees away so that he wouldn’t climb them, she knew.

It took a few hours for it to really sink in, though. He spent the afternoon under a bed and turned his nose up at snack, which meant he’d had maybe half an ounce all day, and he didn’t eat much more than that yesterday. He’s been on an appetite stimulant and nausea medication, but it wasn’t enough to beat down the pain in his belly. But the way he sniffed at it and then turned away made the Woman say the words out loud. We have to let him go.

They understood that we’d reached the point where doing anything more was for us and not him. So the decision was made to let him begin his journey to the Bridge, and the stabby guy did not want to make him wait any longer, either. So this evening at about 5:40, Buddah exhaled one last time and headed off to meet Hank and Dusty, and to see all out friends who have gone before us.

Doods…if you read our last book, you probably got the sense that he and I had finally made our peace. And we had. He stopped picking on me and I stopped running away from him. Last night, we drank from the fountain at the same time.

I complained about him all the time, because he was a furry pain in my asterisk, but doods…he was glorious.

And dignified...