The C word

I haven't blogged about Cherubino's cancer for a while because I have been waiting for good news to report. It's not that all the news is bad, it's just there's not nearly as much good news as I would wish.

Upside: He stopped vomitting blood within a week or so of starting chemo. He's very sweet and gentle and not hiding out moping. Except for his white blood cell count, which is a bit low, all his other blood cell counts are fine.

Downside: Moderately low white blood cell count. Worse, he is terribly, frighteningly skinny. I feel like we've entered a Stephen King book where my lovely fat Buddha incurred the wrath of a pack of Gypsy squirrels and was cursed, "Thinner." (Even I went through a Stephen King phase in seventh grade.) In October he was almost 19 lbs. When he went in for his endoscopy mid-March he was 16.75 lbs. Last week he was down to 14 lbs. He is a shadow of himself. I can feel his vertebrae and ribs. When I came out of the backroom at the clinic and the vet techs had taken him out of his kennel to cuddle (they all adore him) and I didn't see his eyes I thought, "What a pretty cat," not realizing he was my faithful Cheru baby. Chemo sucks.

He's also lost a bit of his pluck. He's not acting sickly, he's just not fiesty. Although he cuddles them, he doesn't really want to play with the other cats and seems a bit resigned to things, i.e. he used to meow and talk the whole time in the car but on the drive up to the clinic the other day he didn't talk and just curled up and looked at me with sad jeweled eyes. He does like sitting in the sun by the sliding glass door and watching the birds and squirrels, so I'm hoping that, and lots of loving, will keep him engaged. Fight, fight, do not go gentle and all.

Dr. G -- after talking to the internist and the oncologist -- has decided that, due to his intestinal troubles, Cheru may be having difficulty absorbing the steroid that he is taking in addition to the chemo. (Which Dr. G at first warned me may produce an overweight cat and might ultimately result in [treatable] diabetes -- instead, the opposite has happened.) So, starting Sunday, we're going to do a steroid injection rather than a pill. We're also going to give him a vitamin B injection, which should help absorption, both of the medicine and the food. If we thought pilling a cat was difficult, just wait until we start shooting him up. Dr. G thinks this may be the solution to getting Cheru over the hump. Here's hoping he's right.