Unexpected emotional fallout

When I was little, my dad used to sing Cat Steven's song Moonshadow to me as I went to sleep at night.  (Among many others, but that one always stuck with me for some reason.)  I have no idea why, but I always had a really strong connection in my head between that song and our cat, Ashley, a big ole russian blue tomcat.  (Dad and I used to have constant arguments about whether he was a black cat [I firmly believed he was.  He honestly looked black to me!!] or grey...) In that sort of ephemeral way that things connect when you're a child, Ashely was my moonshadow, that's just how it was.

Me and Ashley helping dad in the kitchen sometime in the mid 80's...

Fast forward about 20 years, and now I sing  Moonshadow to my own kids almost every night.  I remember being really struck when Cadence was first born, and I first began singing it, that I got the same comfort and pleasure out of singing it to her as I did when I was little and Dad was singing it to me.  It was more than nostalgia-it was total recall.  Far beyond simply enjoying getting to share the experience, it restored that safe feeling entirely.

Anyway, both Cadence and Hazel now adore that song, and will even sing softly along with me sometimes...and I suppose it naturally follows that I now think of Puy, who is also at least partially russian blue (she has that same coloring!) as being their moonshadow.  We've always referred to her as our shadow cat, even before we had kids and the song came into play... I think it's because she's the color of a shadow - which, I can now see and admit, is NOT black. Though Cadence and I even have that same argument dad and I used to have, and of course I'm on the side dad used to be on...but I don't argue too hard, because I have such visceral memories of KNOWING that Ashley was black, and not understanding why dad didn't agree.  Maybe it's something about developing a discerning eye, but I honestly couldn't tell the difference.  Perhaps she can't see it yet, either.   But I digress:

This journey with Puy is certainly not mine to claim as major emotional turmoil (I'm not the one losing a limb without any warning or ability to understand why...) but there have certainly been moments of deep emotional impact.  Some have had more of a comic backdrop - like the time during the weekend before her surgery, when I walked into the kitchen looking for comfort, telling James that I didn't want to take Puy's leg away, at the precise moment that he was disarticulating a chicken leg at the hip and ripping it apart from the body - and some are more just heart-wrenching, like watching my beloved little kitten trying to navigate this strange and horrible thing that is happening to her.  The instance that inspired this post, though, is one that came totally from left field, which is, I guess, how grief tends to getcha.

Last night was the first night that I have sung that particular song since Puy's surgery, and I have to admit it struck me rather hard.  That second verse just suddenly felt so much more...close to home, or something.  

"And if I ever lose my legs, I won't whine, and I won't beg. For if I ever lose my legs, oh if, I won't have to run no more."  

My poor little moonshadowcat...she lost her leg, more literally than I would ever have expected, but she is absolutely picking up and carrying on. 

Good kitty.

A farewell to limbs

When we first brought her home.

Today is Puy's very last day as a four-legged cat.  Tomorrow we have to bring her in to have her rear-left leg amputated - a seemingly horrible fate, but an action that will save her life, and save her from months of unnecessary suffering at the hands of the cancer that has taken hold in that limb.

 If we opted for removal of the tumor only, and even if we followed up with weeks of chemotherapy, the prognosis would not be as good (or immediate) as it will be with the amputation.  And as one vet put it, it's one surgery, one recovery, and then she's cancer-free and will likely go on to live a long, full, happy life as a three legged kitty, and she won't have to suffer through surgery, recovery, weakened function, possible subsequent surgeries, the horrible experience of chemo, all with a strong possibility of recurrence, and starting all over again.

Just a few weeks ago, pre freakishly-fast growing tumor.

So we opted for what sounds on paper like the more extreme route.  She's our sweet baby cat, and while we feel bad that we have to take her (oft used!) leg, we've embraced this as a largely positive thing.  Cats are remarkably adaptable and I think that, after the inevitably adjustment period, being a three legged cat will suit her personality just fine, and this way, the cancer will be gone and she'll be able to move on to her next adventure, likely learning how to take revenge by pouncing our toes through the sheets with added, three legged vigor.

But I still love and worry about my little Puy Berry Blue, and mourn the loss along with her, and hope this transition will be as smooth and painless as possible.

Love you, Puyta cat!

Last Tuesday, after the biopsy confirming the diagnosis.

Fuck Cancer.

I don't know how to start this post.  I've been wanting to write it for a while now, and have written many irreverent, witty versions of it in my head that come across as meaningful but not whiney.

Unfortunately, I can't ever seem to figure out how to translate those from my mind through my keys and into cyberspace, so I'm just gonna start and go with it, and see what happens.

My life has been touched by this thing, this rising trend, in many ways, and I have to say, I dislike it.  Enormously.  And it is not something that is even remotely within my control, and so I sit and stew and try to figure out how to come to terms with this evil thing that wields such unfair power.  And then I move on, and try to make the most of what I've got, because getting bogged down by the awfulness of it all would just be contributing to its victory.

I'm referring, of course, to Cancer.  Niggling little bitch gets into places it doesn't belong and shoves everything that lives there out of its way to make room for itself - talk about elitist, this disease takes the cake!  Taking gentrification, resource guzzling, and self-importance to the extreme!

This whole thing is just to send a big FUCK YOU out to cancer in general.  There is no deep inner thoughts, no poetic meaning, I just want to rant and wag my middle fingers at this smarmy-ass disease.
I'm tired of feeling haunted by it, and just kinda wanna call the damn thing out.

Why now?  Well, the overwhelming reality of it is hitting me pretty hard this week because it showed up really unexpectedly.  AGAIN.

For me, pregnancy comes with cancer.  It started in 2006 when, two months after a clean mammogram, my mom noticed a lump in her breast.  Since she'd just had the clean screening, she didn't think much of it and took about 3 weeks to get around to calling the doctor.  Then it took the doctor about 3 weeks to bring her in to check it out.  By the time they realized it was bad and the biopsy confirmed the result, it was mid-September and the cancer was one stage shy of fatal.  Then, a few days before her mastectomy, my beloved cat and faithful best friend from kindergarten on, Ragamuffin, was diagnosed with cancer as well.  These were the circumstances under which we began Cadence's pregnancy.

Mom, thankfully, was able to fight her way through a pretty grueling year, and beat it.  Ragamuffin, sadly, was not.

Fast forward a couple of years:  We receive word sometime in the early summer that my Grandpa Ed had a bad cough, which they thought was pneumonia...but it was soon discovered that it was, in fact, a rapidly aggressive form of lung cancer linked to his exposure to Agent Orange during his time as a medic in the Vietnam War.  Thus began my pregnancy with Hazel, who unfortunately did not get to meet him.  I was still in my first trimester when he passed away that September.  (Also around this time, my cousin Aaron's father lost his own battle with cancer.  It was a rough time for that side of the family.)

Fast forward another couple of years, when I suddenly find myself pregnant for a third time, rather unexpectedly.  Evidently the first two experiences had a bit of a traumatic influence on me, because this time I was waiting for it. "Uh oh," I thought, "who's gonna get cancer this time?"

So I can't say I was surprised when my mom called to report that she was going in for a bone scan.  It seemed inevitable!  I felt so guilty...and stupid for feeling guilty, too.  So I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the scan was negative.  "See!" I tried to tell myself, "Just coincidence!  No connection at all."

That only lasted until the doctor (thankfully) decided to send her in for a PET scan, just in case.  Sure enough, there was a big ole inoperable tumor wrapped around her sternum, (which we later found out it had pathologically broken) and the cancer had once more reared its head.

It wasn't too long after that when my cousin Jessie, who had just had her own first child, lost her half-brother to the disease.

We headed down to KY to spend the summer with my mom while she underwent some pretty nasty chemo treatments.  While we were there, my friend Liz - who is my age and not in a high-risk category - reported that she had been diagnosed with skin cancer!  Insane!

So this brings us (in this super-summarized version,) to current events.  I'm sitting here now, 38 weeks pregnant and ready to welcome our new little life into this world, watching somewhat helplessly as various iterations of cancer pull at strings around me.  Jessie, the loss of her brother still fresh, just lost her dad to the same disease a few days ago. (this has been a rough time for that side of the family.)   Mom got word that the chemo has stopped working, and her best bet now is a dangerous surgery that will involve a team of surgeons to remove most of her breastbone and bits of her ribs, and then rebuilding them with artificial replacements and grafting muscles around them to reconstruct the area...its great because it's possible, and will give her the best chance at a full recovery.  It's awful because it's a scary, major surgery that will require a months-long and seriously unpleasant recovery.

And last week, our sweet little kitty Puy cat suddenly (literally overnight) developed a (huge) lump on her back leg, and after a trip to the ER and a biopsy, we've learned that it is an exceptionally tenacious, localized form of cancer.  Evidently it doesn't spread very quickly, but it's almost impossible to excavate from its chosen spot, which is why tomorrow, I have to take her in to have her leg amputated (and pray that I don't go into labor before we can pick her up, and bring her home to adjust to life as a [cancer free, but] three legged kitty).

And all of this is just since I got into the game of bringing new life into this world.  It doesn't mention my friends' parents who struggled with it during our childhoods.  Or my friend Rob, who lost his battle with it back in high school.  Or my friend Jonathan, who was one of the most advanced students at my martial arts school when he suddenly had to seriously scale back his studies to begin treatment. Or Jacob, my friend Kate's remarkable son, who suffered through and beat a particularly nasty form of brain cancer when he was only two!  Or my high school teacher who would often show up with fresh bandages from where he'd had to have yet another tumor removed in his fight against skin cancer.  Or my mom's friend who's stomach cancer took her away from her new husband shortly after their wedding.  Or my own grandfather, who lived to be 91 years old, but was finally doomed by colon cancer.

And it also doesn't include all of the amazing stories - wonderful and horrible - that I have heard from friends and members of our various communities who have come out of the woodwork to offer support, especially since I took the highly visible step of shaving my head to make a wig for mom.  There was one woman in particular who approached me after that and shared her own story, and I feel I've gained a friend from it...but then last week she reported that she had lost a close, young relative to the disease somewhat unexpectedly, and it drives home just how unfamiliar and unpredictable it can be all over again.

So seriously, Screw You, Cancer.  Passive aggressive bastard.  Stop harassing my loved ones at every turn.

Mom wearing my hair.

I wish I had the knowledge and skill to aid in the research to make it all go away.

Packing!...but mostly, watermelon.

Things have been pretty chaotic around here.  Deciding to up and move your entire family to an entirely new environment a thousand miles away, and ditching half your stuff in the process, all in three weeks time, makes for a crazy three weeks.  We've been sorting and packing and gathering records and trying to field all the "WTF you're leaving?" calls and trying to organize our farewell party (and silent auction!) for this sat (e-mail if you need details!) and...

Well, Cadence has been extremely helpful during all of this, helping us pack (above), entertaining visitors, and just generally being her wonderful self.  On saturday, she had her very first taste of watermelon, which I had cut up for her.  She liked it, but wasn't as interested in it as she was in the slices that the rest of us had.  So, on Sunday, we went ahead with a Grand Experiment and gave her her very own slice.  The results:  We died.  It was too much cute.  She LOVED it!  And she bit off tiny pieces that posed no choking hazard.  Hurrah! 

It was a mini, seedless watermelon, which proved to be just exactly Cadie-sized, and perfect for munching on with those aching, tooth-infested gums.


Ack!  the baby-sized bite marks in the baby-sized melon, with those baby-sized hands holding it so delicately...these photos just can't do the event justice.  I'd say it was the highlight of something, but with Cadence around, every moment is a highlight, and she keeps things so unique it's hard to compare one event to another.  [For instance, our simple trip to the container store yields moments of preciousness like this:

Aren't they cute?]

Another noteable moment came this Saturday, when, after a mere 3 years (3 years!  Seriously!!) Puy finally met Puy.  Here they are together, in all the glory that is Puy, x2.