Technically I was ready to put up a new post a couple of days ago except it's been so long since I logged on to my site that I forgot my Typepad password.
Which is not an excuse so much as it is an explanation.
So... where've I been for the past month?
Judging from the (increasingly aggressive) tone of some email I've received, this is a hot topic. I'm flattered that many of you seem to have missed me. You're very sweet and I thank you for sticking around. (And for those who found fit to lecture me about my "responsibilities" as a blogger/author, well, let's just say it took all my willpower not to invite you to go fuck yourself with a very sharp stick.)
Usually around this time of year I get super-busy working on the next manuscript. Posting becomes more sparse because I try really hard not to "cross-pollinate." I don't want to fill my blog with what's going in the next book. As the fifth one is all about current experiences rather than old memories, there's not much happening outside of what I've been doing for it. So, as much as I'd like to tell you all about accidentally setting the curtains on fire at the Four Seasons in New York, unintentionally buying what may or may not have been black tar heroin in Chinatown, and the whole ear-candling debacle, I'm obligated to save those stories for print.
My hope is that it will have been worth it.
Normally I can deal with working on deadline and posting with semi-regularity but this year's been different. When I got back from tour, I noticed my ancient calico cat Maggie was looking more frail than usual so I brought her to the vet. (We use Cat Hospital of Chicago and LOVE them.)
Back when I had graduated from college, my cat Savannah got sick and we only had enough money to get baseline treatment at a different facility. We ended up losing her when she was only seven and it was awful and I vowed that I'd never let finances dictate my pet's health again, regardless of what we might have to sacrifice. Even when we were both broke and unemployed/without healthcare coverage, we made sure we had pet insurance. (When you don't have kids, pets' lives take on extra significance. Not to say that they don't for parents, too, but at least for us, our guys are an enormous part of who we are.)
So, when I brought Mags in, I told them price wasn't an issue and to do whatever they had to do to fix her. We were back and forth to the vet's office all the time and I learned how get outside of my comfort zone and administer injections. Unfortunately, she had intestinal lymphoma on top of panceratitis and all we could do was to make her final days as comfortable as possible.
Maggie was always a master manipulator and she took me at my pledge to spoil her as much as I could. So, despite her waning appetite and failing systems, she managed to inhale $45 worth of fresh shrimp from Whole Foods' seafood bar before she left this realm.
Fletch and I were devastated the day we had to put her down, even though she was almost seventeen and, by all counts, had lived a long and happy life. We knew losing her would impact us, but we didn't grasp what an effect it would have on the other pets. I never realized it before but Maggie was their leader and they looked to her for how to behave - when to eat, where to sleep, when to play, etc. Without her, our pets drifted around the house, confused and a little lost. And that was heartbreaking.
Fletch and I went away for the Fourth, and the whole time we were gone, we talked about the pet situation and what to do next. We have three other cats and they're all elderly. If we're lucky, we'll get a few more years out of each of them. I hated thinking about how soon we might go from four cats to none.
A few weeks before we lost Maggie, I went on a Little India adventure with my friend Gina. (Note for the new book - Indian food? Two thumbs up. Indian threading? OH, HELL NO.) Gina mentioned that she was feeding a litter of kittens in her backyard and trying to place them with a shelter, but apparently it's "kitten season" and no one could take them. As Gina's already been suckered into bringing in two stray cats who hate each other so much that they have to live in separate areas of her home, she couldn't keep them herself. (Another new book story - the day Gina and I thought her cat and my menagerie would enjoy a play date.) (FYI, there's a damn good reason "kitty parks" aren't a doggie park counterpart.)
As we watched the fireworks in Las Vegas and talked, Fletch came to the conclusion that we had enough room in our home/hearts for a new kitten.
Of course, I came to the conclusion that we had enough room in our home/hearts for THREE new kittens.
Seriously, how could I break up a set? How could I take just one? What would determine who got to live in luxury and who might die horribly on the mean streets of Chicago? They were litter-mates and they'd be so helpless and weak and scared and, really, it's not like dogs where as each one is exponentially more work.
Three is no big deal.
Three is fine.
Three would effectively replace all the cats we've lost over the past ten years. Three is the new black.
We made a plan to round up our newest family members on Monday as we weren't getting back from Vegas until Sunday.
Before I even brought my suitcase up the stairs upon arrival home, I was hit with a voicemail telling my my pit bull Maisy had cancerous tumors.
Let's just say I did not take this news well.
For years Maisy's been covered with these gross lumps. The vet always told us they were essentially big doggie zits and they weren't a problem and yeah, we could have them removed but it would be traumatic for Maisy and to not worry about them. Finally, something dawned on me this year and I insisted they not only aspirate one of the lumps, but also get a formal lab report.
Malignant.
(BTW, thank you VCA Lake Shore Animal Hospital, for charging me $800/year for doggie wellness visits in which your care did nothing to promote their wellness. Added kudos for refusing to forward our records to another vet for a second opinion until you spoke to us to try and persuade us to let you keep the business and do the surgery. I sincerely hope this is the exact quality of care you receive if you're to get sick.)
We couldn't get Maisy in to see the new vet on Thursday and I figured the best thing for me would be some distraction, so we headed down to Gina's on Monday night. Gina told us all about how cute the little guys were and said they were really, really sweet.
Which they were.
Until cornered.
Gina had been able to lure them into her gingerbread house with a can of Trader Joe's tuna. Complications only arose when Fletch tried to move them from Gina's trap to our carrier.
Suddenly these tiny grey beings who Gina had called "The Cherubs" because they were so stinking cute turned into a tiny tank full of sharks.
Covered in lasers.
They bit Fletch hard - and repeatedly - as he moved them from one carrier to another. Neither Gina nor I were of any help because we were laughing so much. When Gina offered Fletch some rubbing alcohol for his puncture wounds, he dryly remarked, "Yes. That will certainly stop the rabies."
Gina had never been allowed a real look at the little guys and when we finally did see them up close, we noticed they were in rough shape. Sneezy, rheumy, wheezy, itchy, and one of them had what appeared to be a giant pink balloon attached to his butt.
That couldn't be good.
We got them home and sequestered them in our treadmill room (it's nice to know it's useful for something) and I brought them to our cat vet first thing in the morning. Turns out the poor little guys wouldn't have made it for more than another day or two. They had eye infections, upper respiratory infections, dehydration, ear mites, fleas, worms, and one of them had a prolapsed rectum, which essentially means the little guy had such bad diarrhea that he blew out his o-ring. As they were so sick, I didn't want to name them in case we lost one, so I just called them collectively The Thundercats.
Fortunately for Fletch, they didn't have rabies, nor did they have any of the fatal cat diseases so we went ahead with treatment, thus incurring the first pet surgery to repair Thundercat One's bunghole.
There was an issue with Thundercat Two's eye and the vet kept a close watch on it. She did her best to treat it but it was too far gone due to infection so on Wednesday we were referred to a feline opthamology clinic.
Nope, I didn't know such a thing existed, either.
I found out that Thundercat Two needed an operation to sew his third eyelid over the eye if there was any chance he'd be able to keep it. I confirmed that even with one eye Thundercat Two would have an excellent quality of life, so I authorized the surgery and named him Odin. (Come on, it's the perfect name. And if we ever have a three-legged dog we're going to call him Tripod.)
In the mean time, Thundercat Three had made an almost complete recovery, but he was still an asshole. The vet's nurse said she'd hold him up in the window of his incubator so everyone could get a glimpse of his "mean face." She said she kept intending to bring in her camera so she could take a LOLcat photo with an "I has an evil" caption.
Naturally, we named him Chuck Norris.
On Thursday we took Maisy to her new vet and got a thorough workup. We found out that not only had VCA misdiagnosed her, but they also missed two more mast cell tumors at which point I asked Fletch to hide all stabby/shoot-y/explode-y elements in our house for fear I'd go Columbine on them.
Our new doggie vet explained how serious this condition could be and referred us to "the Mayo Clinic for pets" in the suburbs where Maisy would be operated on by a board-certified surgeon and her follow-up treatment would be taken care of by a canine oncologist.
Yes, canine oncologist.
Apparently they exist, too.
Maisy had surgery on Monday and she came though like a champ. (For those of you keeping track at home, that's three pet surgeries in one week.) Her blood, urine, xrays, and ultrasounds look clear, so at this point there's not a lot of evidence that the tumors metastasized, but we won't have a real conclusion until the pathology reports are back next week. She'll start seeing an oncologist but hopefully more for preventative treatment than anything else. And if her prognosis isn't as positive as we hope, we're off to the vet school in Madison where they do miraculous stuff with animals.
In the meantime, the Thundercats (with Three now named Angus) came home this weekend.
You might think they'd show a little bit of appreciation for the people who wrote four-figured checks on their behalf.
You would be wrong.
At one point, Fletch asked me if people couldn't get sweet, socialized, non-feral kittens for $25 at PAWS.
"Um, yeah," I replied, "but only if they don't like a challenge."
However, we're slowly winning them over, one can of kitten food at a time. Now their hissing and cowering is cursory at best.
As of this moment, Odin's surgery didn't take and he's still going to need to have an eye removed, but we've got to hold off while his orbital bone grows with the rest of his face. This has in no way stopped him from being the quintessential leaping, cavorting, frolicking kitty. He just does it all in an e-collar.
Maisy is in fabulous spirits, too, although I have to try and keep her from leaping, cavorting, and frolicking until her stitches come out. She acts like everything was simply like that season on Dallas where it was all Bobby's bad dream.
As for me, yesterday was the first day in a couple of weeks that I didn't have to spend hauling pets to specialty clinics or having panic attacks.
That was nice.
Which means now I have to start concentrating on the fifth book, a task made less easy when being stared at by eight seven and a half sets of eyes.
Odin - "Tryin' to catch the deluge in a plastic paper cup."
Angus - "Bungholier than thou."
Chuck Norris - "One pounds of fury."
FrankenMaisy - "We has teh technolgees. We cans rebuild her."
"Heaven's awesome, but please send more shrimp."
P.S. Does anyone know what Hawaii's like at Christmas? Because we're not going to find out this year.
