My Cat Has Cancer
By: Niki Marinis
Tags: Cancer, Life Lessons, Pets, Love, Self

My Cat Has Cancer

And I don’t really know how to deal with it

The author and her cat, Jameson. Author’s picture.

I thought he might just have a bacterial infection. He had straight liquid coming out of his butt. There’s really no other way to put it. Get in the poo box — sound of a faucet running. He’d throw up here and there. I’d get home from work and he just wouldn’t shut up.

Oh my God, I wanted to throw him through a window. I love him, but Christ almighty, I don’t have kids, or a dog, for a reason. I didn’t realize he was yelling at me because he felt like ass.

So I took him to the vet. They did some blood work that came back ever so faintly anemic, and because I’d brought him in six months prior for some vomiting issues, they said they’d like to do an abdominal UltraScan to make sure everything was cool in there. He’s 12 years old, so it was probably a good idea. I was all for it. Plus, they’d have to shave his belly. Hilarious! I’m even more on board.

Hahaha, look at that belly! Author’s picture.

Brought him back in for the scan. In these Covid times, the waiting room is now your car in the parking lot. At least I can listen to my own music. Eventually, the vet came out to give me the results of the scan.

She said the lymph nodes in Jameson’s belly were gargantuan, and that his intestines were kind of thick, but the rest of his organs looked fantastic. So he either had the worst case of IBS she’d ever seen in her life… or lymphoma.

OK.

This didn’t really register with me. News like this never does. Especially if you give me options. If you give me options, I’m always going to go with the least fatal one first, then jump off that other bridge later.

I’m not always good with feeling feelings in the moment. I think (notice I said think there?) I often get overwhelmed and need time to process them. Like fallout from an atom bomb. Or I often equate it to letting Jell-O set.

I’m getting much better at letting myself feel things, undoing all that childhood trauma and conditioning, but this was very much a survival tactic. You button that shit up. Or, I do.

I also kinda need a house to be dropped on my head.

The vet said I was taking this news very well. That kind of jolted me. I was like, uh… I didn’t hear you say he had cancer and was dying. You said he MIGHT have lymphoma, and to ME, that means he TOTALLY doesn’t.

For me, in the wave of news I don’t like, shock and denial are instant, and I immediately attempt to set up permanent residence. Barcalounger goes there, flatscreen goes there…

I told the vet I have a degree in Theater and I’m a very good actor and none of this has hit me yet. I’m the court jester making everyone laugh at the funeral, and I’m sure I’ll eventually fall apart, I said with a laugh.

We decided to bring Jameson back in two weeks to rescan his belly. They sent me home with anti-nausea meds and Prednisone. If he had IBS or cancer, Prednisone was the answer and something he’d need for the rest of his life. Rock and roll.

Liquid meds via syringe I have to cram down his throat. Not so rock and roll.

I got home from the vet and looked up lymphoma and read how the life expectancy rates for large cell lymphoma are 3–6 months and small cell lymphoma are 9 months to a year.

Bottle of Prednisone in one hand and my phone in the other and I just start shaking. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. This has got to be a joke.

This is my baby kitten. This is my baby Jameson. This is my baby pooh.

The baby Jameson. Author’s picture.

I’ve had him since he was three months old, just days before my 30th birthday. He was born on St. Patrick’s Day. He’s my needy, clingy puppy dog kitty who greets me at the door and always has to be touching me. Have To Touch The Mama. My little garbage disposal fruit eater, Rice Krispie Treat, danish stealer.

He’s my kid. He’s my family.

Nope, nope, nope. Not gonna deal with this right now. Back to my Barcalounger in Denial Land.

I was honestly fine with this until the next day (shocker) when, not only did reality start to set in, but so did me having to tell my parents. Well, telling my Mom. Telling my siblings was pretty OK. Dad doesn’t do feelings (where DO you get it from, Niki?) or much in the way of words, so not gonna get much of a reaction or support there, so that leaves Mom.

I tried to hold it together all day before I stopped by their house on the way home from work. I don’t know why, but I was surprised at how hard I broke down, and I always try so hard NOT to break down, as I told her Jameson might have cancer.

She didn’t break down and become a blubbering mess as I expected. Medication will fuck with your emotions sometimes. She was the reasonable, we’ll get through this person I needed, and I was thankful.

The vet called with some test results. They’d taken some fluid from Jameson’s lymph nodes to try a test that might show whether or not he had cancer. The test had come back inconclusive. So there was still a chance he just had heinous IBS.

I felt the heaviest weight in all the land lift off my shoulders and damn near floated out of the backyard. I was also frightened by how I only noticed this weight had even been there once it was gone.

For two weeks life was back to normal, with the added trauma of giving liquid meds to a cat who very much doesn’t want them. His liquid butt turned into solid poo butt and my hopes were super high that it was, indeed, just heinous IBS!

Not really helping me write, there, pal. Author’s picture.

I took Jame back in for his belly re-scan. The vet said his lymph nodes weren’t that much smaller than before, and that was a likely indication of small cell lymphoma. This news had a little more bite to it than last time.

I know all things die. Believe me, I’ve thought about when he’ll die since the moment I got him, but it was always of natural causes, and when he was at least 20. We had a Siamese who lived to be 20, so I have high expectations. And he died at home, in my Dad’s arms, in our garage, when I was 17.

My parent’s cat, Cat, got cancer and was a miserable, projectile vomiting wretch, and my Mom made the decision to put him down. All my sister and brother-in-law’s dogs eventually got cancer and had to be put down. (Is there something in the water?) I can’t imagine having to make that decision. And now I’m having to imagine eventually making that decision.

I find it increasingly difficult to maintain my residence in Denial Land. I’m slowly walking away from my Barcalounger and flatscreen. I can’t afford movers.

She said it was possible to do an endoscopy and biopsy his intestines to find out definitively yes or no, and that procedure would run a cool $6,000.

You read that right.

Those are human prices. And that’s just to find out a yes or a no. Now, if he had a tumor they could go in and cut out and that would solve the problem, I would throw down my credit card, no problem. Wouldn’t even bat an eye. But six grand just for a yay or nay? And the treatment is the same either way? I think I’ll have to pass.