My Story, Part 3.

Now, for the conclusion...

Those next few days were the worst days, really. I stayed in my room most of the time, and only came upstairs to eat. I didn’t eat a whole lot, and I didn’t even great mommy and daddy when they came home from work. I would cry when being picked up. I wheezed a lot from the lump under my chin/near my throat. Mommy and Daddy thought I might have to go to the bridge soon. But each day I got a little better. My Mommy C came to see me that Thursday. I headbutted her like crazy- I really missed her!! And then Saturday was Mommy K’s birthday. Mommy K had been sad- she thought I was going to the bridge any day, but that Saturday I really turned around. I started the day by giving her her first present- I greeted her for the first morning in a week! And then that night, when she came home from work Daddy had made her a candlelit dinner. And my second present was to beg for food the whole time they ate! Yes, this might seem annoying, but I didn’t meow much back then cuz of the lump, and I also generally wasn’t interested in people or food enough to beg back then either, so it made Mommy and Daddy THRILLED to see me back in action.

Each week thereafter I improved dramatically. By the end of the next week, my lumps had almost disappeared, and on the fifth week I was pronounced in remission. It is now about 10 weeks since I started chemo, so I’ve been in remission about 5 weeks.

The other thing they noticed during all this was that I would still sneeze. A nice lady on the lymphoma forums told Mommy try something called lysine, and I stopped sneezing finally. It seems that I also have feline herpesvirus. That can lay dormant in cats for many years until they get stressed by something like cancer, moving, other illness, etc… So the sneezing that prompted mommy and daddy to get me to a vet may have been caused by the herpesvirus, which had also probably trigged the secondary infection of ammonia. The herpesvirus may have saved my life by prompting my parints to get me to the vet for the sneezing.

Phew! I did a lot of typing today! I have at least one MeMe to complete tomorrow, and in the coming days I will post my chemo protocol for those who are interested. I want to share the good news though- my appetite is fully recovered from the chemo 9 days ago! This morning mommy came down and saw my bowl was empty- she grumped at dad for not giving me breakfast- and Dad told her no, I’d eaten it that quick! Daddy had just given me breakfast half an hour ago and I’d eated it all that quick! So Mom gave me the other half of the 5.5 ounce can, and that was empty when Mom and Dad came home! I’ve eaten almost all of the dinner that they gave me too already! Mom says I can now stop all my nausea meds for now! Yippee! Less medicine!

Purr at you soon! Thanks again for visiting me!
-Texas