Another update on Kestra

I saw the vet today who told me that what I found on Kestra's abdomen were burns. He said he reviewed the surgery log but couldn't see how she could have gotten burned. Since I haven't been setting her on fire and I'm pretty sure she doesn't smoke (although that poor scratchy meow she has now makes it sound like she's been lighting up for forty years), I'm still fairly certain this happened during the surgery and no one noticed it. (Plus the vet didn't charge me for the visit, which makes me even more suspicious.) Anyway, that's actually remarkably awesome news. First, because the burns are healing very well. Second, because that means it is quite possible that the surgery removed all the cancer. Since all her blood tests came back fine and the chest x-ray showed that it hadn't metastasized to that area, I am thinking that they removed the malignant tumor (along with the lymph node itself) and probably got it all. Hopefully, that is the case. I will still be checking her frequently for other growths, but it is within the realm of possibility that she will live symptom-free for many, many years to come. (Of course, just to add a dose of reality here, it could also mean that she will keep developing tumors and there will come a day that I will have to make a very hard decision about her on-going treatment.) But, luckily, I don't have to think about that right now.

It's funny, since I had been giving her her antibiotics twice a day she grew to really dislike that time of day. I thought I was being clever when I gave her her medicine right after I got home since this is when she is her most clingy - rubbing my ankles, tripping me up, generally quite annoying. Wednesday was her last dosage. I came home from work and she was nowhere to be found. Well, that's not true, I found her hiding behind the futon in a very hard to reach place. But it occurred to me, as I was frantically searching my house and all her favorite hiding places (the futon not being one of her usual spots to go), I realized how much I missed her greeting me when I came home, even when it annoyed me. I'm sure I will be loving many things about her in the months and years to come that have previously annoyed me. Well, okay, not the chronic puking, that still doesn't make me happy -- but, "some cats are just pukers" -- to quote my regular vet.