Tag: stereotactic radiosurgery

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Sweet Katusha: Thank You For Being So Good to Me

It’s been about a month now that my dear Katusha passed away and I’m still mourning her, as I always will in some form. She had an aggressive form of abdominal cancer and I didn’t even know she was sick until she suddenly stopped eating and drinking. It was too late to do much.

She was a few weeks short of eight years old, so very young for a cat. My other cat, Rhea, passed away only a little over two years earlier, also of cancer. She was only ten, and hers was a sarcoma on her head. I asked the vet if it was something in my house, in Arizona, in the air or water. But she said no; these are two very common forms of cancer in cats. Most likely something in their genetic codes.

I adopted Katusha seven and a half years ago when I lived in West Hollywood, CA. My job at the time had crazy hours and I felt badly because Rhea, whom I’d adopted in New York a couple years earlier before moving to CA, was alone for hours on end. I thought she needed a companion.

I saw a post on Facebook. It was kitten season and a woman fostering a litter found motherless on the street was required to return them to the high-kill LA County shelter she volunteered for since they were now old enough. She was worried and needed adopters. I spotted a cute-looking boy cat in the litter and called the foster. It turned out the boy cat had already been adopted and they only had a girl available. I was dubious about adopting a female because I worried two girl cats wouldn’t get along. But I picked this little one up – her name was Cinderella at the time because of her fondness for making a little bed for herself out of her foster mom’s shoes – and she immediately purred and let me cuddle her as much as I wanted. She was perfect for me. I called my vet and she told me that as long as everyone was spayed gender wouldn’t be an issue. So she was ours!

Katusha continued to love shoes, by the way. I changed her name from Cinderella because there was a Russian ballroom dancer I adored and I loved her name. Katusha seemed perfect for a cat 🙂

At first Rhea was pretty mad at me. Actually I think she kind of remained mad at me. She had the run of our fairly large apartment all to herself and now she had to share space with a little kitten who constantly wanted to play. But she soon learned to tolerate her new sister. And the vet was right – there were no fighting issues.

Katusha’s coat was the most amazing pattern! She was so playful as a small kitten, as I guess most small kittens are.

She and Rhea really loved that WeHo apartment with its big patio door and floor-to-ceiling windows that were perfect for bird-watching!

Unlike Rhea, who wasn’t very cuddly, Katusha loved to snuggle in my lap as I read. This is one of the things I miss most about her.

I volunteered at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. In Dogtown. And realized I really missed my dog from childhood, named very imaginatively by my five-year-old self, Fluffy. I lived in a pretty big apartment in LA and everyone in my building seemed to have a dog, and I knew there was room for a small one. One of my friends who volunteered with LA County posted a video on Facebook of a dog for adoption who looked ideal. She described her as shy. I went to West LA Shelter and met her. And we bonded on the spot. Sofia was perfect.

But not to the cats! I brought her home and she immediately chased them. Katusha was the most scared, and she nearly opened the locked window in her attempt to escape. Poor kitty. It took the better part of a year to get her to calm down and accept Sofia. Rhea was easier. You can read Sofia’s take on the whole thing if you like here.

But Katusha was good to me and she loved me. And for my sake, I believe, she eventually managed to get along with Sofia. I made her and Rhea a cat tree and she played in it, even with the crazy dog present down below. She eventually even shared the couch with the dog.

I grew weary of LA traffic and I really wanted to buy a house, which I knew I couldn’t afford in LA, so I decided to move back to Arizona, where I’m from. I thought of moving back to New York but … I’m actually not sure why I didn’t, to be honest. I missed my friends there, I missed the ballet, the culture. I missed my life there. But I think I just wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to return to all the noise and the lack of space and the ten plus hour work days. I’d done somewhat well self-publishing my novels and I’d remembered how angry people in traditional publishing were about the success of indie authors and Amazon and all and I didn’t really want to return to that negativity. Plus, I wanted to buy a house with a yard, see what that kind of life was like. My aunt was also ill at the time and she had no one to care for her. As you can see, I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t return to New York…

Anyway, we moved back to Arizona. We rented a condo for a few months until I could get enough local work experience to qualify for a mortgage. Six months later, we moved into our first house.

Rhea loved the house. It had a bi-level living room, which I found so charming and full of character. And a balcony, which she couldn’t get enough of. It reminded me of the balcony of the loft in our New York apartment, which she loved to sit on and peer down. She loved to jump off the balcony onto the bookcase, little gymnast!

But I’m not sure how much Katusha liked the new house. She pretty much hung out in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, which of course contained all my footwear. She still loved to cocoon herself in my shoes, or between the shoe boxes in the corner. She liked to hide. Perhaps it was because she had longer hair than Rhea and southern Arizona is warm and dry. She’d come out to the kitchen to eat, and use the guest bathroom, where I kept one of the litter boxes. But, unlike Rhea, who loved to climb the stairs, she never ventured up to the second floor to use the other bathroom’s litter box.

A year and a half after we moved in Rhea was diagnosed with a sarcoma on her head. She went through grueling stereotactic radiosurgery, which left her with large radiation burns that eventually became infected. Poor Rhea. I think it must have been traumatic for Katusha to see her sister so sick. I don’t really know how animals handle those kind of things.

A few months later Rhea passed away. Katusha came out of the closet a little more often but not much. She’d sit at the big patio window and look out back a little, but not much. Sitting at the window had always been more Rhea’s thing than Katusha’s, although Katusha seemed to like looking out the window in West Hollywood.

I began volunteering at my local SPCA. I felt Sofia, who’d become best friends with Rhea, missed her sister. She and Katusha got along but they weren’t besties the way she and Rhea were.

I did a couple of short-term fosters with some small dogs at the shelter and Katusha seemed to get along with them. I was amazed. She seemed to now be a dog-friendly cat.

Six months later, I decided to adopt another dog to befriend Sofia and hopefully Katusha as well. I went to the shelter to adopt a dog about Sofia’s size that I’d walked and read to and liked but that dog had gotten adopted by the time I got to the shelter. The adoption counselors encouraged me to look at other dogs since I was there with Sofia, so I did. I hesitantly brought home a dog for what’s called a slumber party to see if she’d get along with everyone in our household. They tested her with cats and found she wasn’t predatory and she and Sofia got along, so even though she was larger than the other dog I was thinking of, I decided to try it. We now had a big backyard, suitable for a larger dog.

When I introduced her to Katusha, Kat was immediately scared of her. No wonder. Irina was much bigger than Sofia. She was a German shepherd / Belgian malinois mix and kind of resembled a coyote with her coloring. Katusha hissed and swatted at her. Irina cried and ran off. I felt that was a good reaction. Irina was giving Katusha her boundaries and hopefully Katusha would soon come around.

But soon took much, much longer than I’d expected. I hired a total of three private trainers and took three group classes. I worked hard on getting both of them to like each other, for many, many months to no avail. I moved Katusha’s litter box and food into the master bedroom and kept her shut in there and away from Irina, which was fine with, really, her since that’s where she always hung out anyway.

It wasn’t until the pandemic when I began to work from home that they finally became friends. And it was mainly Irina’s doing. I opened the door to “Katusha’s room” and let Irina go in with me. She kept trying and trying to break the ice with Katusha, just by touching noses. With Irina in the room whenever I was, Katusha eventually realized that I wasn’t going to let Irina hurt her. Irina didn’t want to anyway. She was just big and scary-looking.

I was so happy when Katusha finally let Irina get close to her.

Katusha slowly began not to be scared. She’d walk around the house and climb into her cat tree even when Irina tried to climb in after her. I’d originally kept Irina crated at night and spend the night with Katusha alone. But when I was home all the time I began to let Irina sleep with us as well. At first Katusha would sleep in the cupboard in the bathroom. But soon she began to come out and sleep with us at night, cuddling with me, while I read to her, even while Irina slept feet away, at the foot of the bed.

The thing was, I think Katusha was feeling sick for a while and it just wasn’t noticeable to me. I think she wanted and needed my attention and she realized the only way she would be able to get it was to befriend the coyote-looking dog. It was literally only days after the above picture was taken that she stopped eating and drinking and I rushed her to the vet. I was so happy they were all getting along and we were all happy and at peace with each other. I do think it was genuine, I just think I forced the peace-making on Katusha and she may not have been truly comfortable for a large part of that time.

When I found out about her cancer it was already advanced. The vet said we could still try chemotherapy. I was hesitant after Rhea’s horrible experience with radiation, and her cancer wasn’t nearly as advanced as Katusha’s. So we tried palliative care. The steroids initially worked wonders and I began to seriously consider chemo. But those wonders were sadly short-lived. After one week she wasn’t eating and drinking again. The vet told me to increase her steroids and pain-killers but Katusha hated me giving her medication and she fought me every time. She started trying to hide from us. She began hissing at Irina and Sofia again when they tried to play with her, which I understood of course since she was feeling so horribly. But it still totally broke my heart.

I separated her from the dogs again and crated them at night, sleeping alone with her. But she often stayed in the cupboard and I had to reach inside and pull her out at night to put her on the bed with me. She purred a little, but it became less and less. I kept increasing the meds until all she did was sleep. The night I had her euthanized at the ER she was so out of it I honestly thought she was going to die of an overdose anyway. Keeping her alive just so I could feel her soft fur against my skin, so I could hold her and make myself believe the steroids would work again, and try hard as I could to wish the pre-sick Katusha back, just became so obviously wrong.

I still feel badly that I didn’t try the chemo even though the ER vet told me her cancer was advanced and it likely wouldn’t keep her alive for long. Cats don’t know they’re being kept alive for so and so much time; they just know they feel unwell and they’re unhappy. I know I did the right thing but I still wonder what if I’d done the chemo. She’d probably still be here. Even after my experience with Rhea, I’m not sure I’m the kind of person who can’t do everything I possibly can to save an animal.

Looking back, I think Katusha made herself get along with the dogs for my sake. First Sofia in LA then Irina in Arizona. She wanted me to be happy and she knew I would be if only they would all get along. I will forever cherish her for doing that for me.

And I’m not so sure she’s really gone. I feel her spirit around the house the same way I still feel Rhea’s. I know the dogs do as well.

Here she is in her cat tree looking outside at us in the backyard. When we’re out back, I often still feel her inside looking out at us.

A month after her death and Irina still sniffs and looks intently at the cupboard, waiting for her to come out.

I’ve been working on a new cozy mystery series, set in a cat cafe and adjoining dog bar with animal sleuths and ghosts. Rhea is the basis for the character of the main ghost, and the cat character who heads the cafe is based on my dear Najma, the cat I had back in New York. Katusha passed away after I finished the penultimate draft but I managed to write in a recurring role for her. So my beloved animals never really die. They live on in my writing and in the spirit energy with which they continue to fill our lives.

 

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Sweet Rhea

Cross–posted here.

Rhea passed away from her cancer November 29, almost a month ago now, and I’ve been quite heartbroken. She moved cross-country with me, and lived with me in five different apartments, and finally a house. She’d been with me through a tumultuous time in my life.

I adopted her from the ASPCA in New York in March, 2011. I’d been unemployed for nearly two years during the recession, and within a week of adopting her, I got my first post-recession job. Cats had always been good luck for me. The day I adopted my first cat in adulthood, Najma, I found out I’d passed the New Jersey bar exam, the first bar I took. The ASPCA told me Rhea was rescued from a hoarder, who had upwards of 70 cats! I hope that was in upstate somewhere and not in a New York City apartment. Anyway, the second I saw her in the shelter I knew she was the cat for me, the way she made eye contact immediately, and purred when I touched her. But it was clear she wasn’t used to people. She hid immediately when I got her home and didn’t come out from under the futon for nearly a week. I felt badly when I had to go back to work right after bringing her home, but I think nothing could have suited her better than to have a whole apartment all to herself.

She really loved our upper west side apartment. And so she should: it was a veritable cat gymnasium. She’d fly up the stairs to the bedroom loft, run to the corner, and jump onto the fireplace mantle. She loved sitting on that mantle and peeking out between the bars of the loft.

But when my lease renewed in October that year, I was tired of New York – all the noise, the lack of space, the lack of money – and decided to try Los Angeles.

Rhea was the best traveler ever. Especially for a cat. We flew from New York to Phoenix, without a peep out of her. Once we landed and I sat her carrier atop my suitcase, I peeked in to see her looking about in wonder, taking everything in. “This is the absolutely coolest experience ever,” she seemed to say.

In Phoenix, where I’m from, my cousin helped me buy a car – my first, having lived in New York City for the past 18 years, basically since becoming an adult. We drove to Los Angeles, with, again, not a peep out of Rhea. It turns out, she loved car rides and plane rides – it meant we were going off on an adventure!

We found an apartment in L.A. but it wouldn’t be ready for another two weeks, so we stayed with a variety of friends and relatives, and then lived for a week in a pet-friendly motel in west Phoenix.

We lived in Burbank for a year before relocating to fabulous West Hollywood, where we had a living room with a huge balcony and a bedroom with a splendid floor-to-ceiling window. “My cat’s going to love this place!” I exclaimed to the landlord, upon seeing it. He shot me a bemused look and said, “Sure.” Yes, I’m the crazy lady who thinks of her animals first. Well, I knew I’d love it there too, of course.

And, yes, when we later moved to Arizona, I chose my first house based on what I knew Rhea would like 🙂

After five years in L.A., I’d finally had enough of the traffic. I think living in New York for so long and from a young age had a permanent effect on my ability to drive without major anxiety. And know I wasn’t alone – my New York friend who’d moved to L.A. years before I did had to drive with a mouth guard so she wouldn’t destroy her teeth by grinding. When Uber became a thing, she took it everywhere. But I couldn’t afford to do that. I had to use my own car to get myself from place to place. As much as I loved West Hollywood, I had to work, and my jobs were either in Century City or downtown L.A., which meant I had to get in my car and risk a nervous breakdown everyday. I still miss L.A. – especially West Hollywood. If ever self-driving cars become affordable and become the norm – which, believe me, will happen long before any serious additions to the Metro system will – I really may move back.

While in L.A., we added to our family, adopting first a kitten, Katusha, then a puppy, Sofia, both from the L.A. County shelter. That apartment was the biggest I’d ever lived in, so there was plenty of space for more. Still, at first, Rhea was not too happy to have to share any of her space with another, but it only took about two weeks before she and Katusha got along.

And soon they were sharing space, particularly the big window overlooking the deck. So many birds, squirrels, even raccoons! So much life out there!

Adjusting to a new dog took quite a bit longer than a new kitten, especially since Sofia, being part rat terrier (I think) just wanted to chase the cats all the time! Sofia wrote a blog post about learning to live with cats here. But Rhea was the first to accept Sofia and break the ice. One day she decided she wouldn’t be scared and run away; instead she’d chase Sofia and grab at her leash. The trainer had taught me to let Sofia run around the house with her leash on staying close behind to grab it if she got out of control. Well, Rhea was so excited by that snaky leash, she pounced on it, totally ignoring that it was attached to the big, bad dog 🙂 It took Katusha a bit longer to adjust, but that was the beginning of a very happy, three-way friendship.

I missed New York but wasn’t sure whether I was ready to go back, especially now that I had three animals, and rents had gone up substantially since I’d left while the rate of pay for the legal work I was doing had stayed the same. I was used to Arizona (or so I’d thought; I hadn’t lived there in 23 years so not quite sure what I thought I knew), and knew there was work there, plus cheaper housing. So, I packed up the family and went.

No one liked moves more than Rhea – the traveling, and the packing boxes!

We rented a condo for a few months until I found a house I wanted to buy. The house was a ways out of town, but I loved it the second I saw it, because the main living area reminded me of our old place in New York. It was two floors, but the living room area was open, so there’s a cathedral roof, and a big, two-floor room, with a balcony! Another kitty gymnasium!

And I was right. The first thing Rhea did when I unpacked her and the others, was run up the stairs, and peek out through the bars of the living room balcony. After we set up the furniture, she became fond of using the balcony to get access to the bookcase, where she’d perch for hours.

She loved the house. We had a big back yard with grass and trees, which drew plenty of birds and cottontail rabbits, and two big patio windows to watch it all through.

I felt badly always letting Sofia go out back, so I bought a harness and let Rhea explore the backyard as well.

She loved that window, such a sun kitty she was.

About a year and a half after we moved I discovered a bump on Rhea’s head. Sofia liked to play with her and would wrap her teeth around Rhea’s ear, so I thought it was maybe an infected abscess. But the doctor did tests and found it to be cancer. She referred me to an oncologist, and they both convinced me to opt for stereotactic radiosurgery, a relatively new form of radiation for animals. I’ve written about all of that in other posts, here and here.

Soon after her three-day radiation treatment, she was back to her old self, getting into everything in the house and sitting atop her old perch.

And she still loved her outdoor stroller rides. I bought the stroller after her diagnosis. I’d always wanted to take her out more, since she loved the outdoors so much, and worried she wouldn’t be able to do that much longer. So, we tried to make up for lost time.

Everything went well for about a month, and then her hair started falling out, which I expected. But what I didn’t expect was all the radiation burns. They spread all across her head and ears. I put a cone around her neck so she wouldn’t scratch them and risk infection but she was so depressed wearing that cone, I soon took it off. The burns got infected anyway, and we went through several rounds of antibiotics, painkillers, and steroids. The tumor had initially shrunk but the skin around her radiation burns began to swell. The doctor didn’t know if the tumor had returned or whether there was just swelling from the infection. I was beside myself because the burns looked awful. Initially, she got better after her initial rounds of painkillers, but the infection wouldn’t heel and the swelling increased. It began to seep into her ear and the ear closed up, which soon made her lose her balance.

It was all so awful and I just kept trying to get those burns to heal.

Finally, on the morning of November 29th, Sofia woke me up unusually early, sticking, as she usually does, her big wet nose into my eye lids. I looked at the time – 3:00 a.m. – and yelled at her to use her wee wee pads if she had to go to the bathroom so early. Of course after I got up two hours later I realized what the problem was. Rhea was sitting in a box my mom had set up for her when she visited a couple weeks back. Her head was leaning all the way to the side, and when she got up to walk, one side of her body just wouldn’t work. It was like she’d had a stroke. I realized then her loss of balance wasn’t the infection spreading into her ear; it was neurological. I called the oncologist as soon as he opened and he told me to bring her to emergency room connected with his clinic. When I got her there he said the tumor had grown substantially since the radiation and was now affecting her brain. We’d done all we could, he said.

So, it was about five months from the time I first noticed the tumor until she passed away, and about three months from the time she’d had the radiation. I may have prolonged her life for, at most, a month, with the stereotactic radiosurgery, and, honestly, I’m not sure I would put another animal through it. I feel like she suffered a lot from those burns, and I’m not sure that month was worth it in terms of the pain. I don’t know. I’m not God. So who am I to say what treatment or lifesaving support is worth it and what is not? The vet had told me the therapy had not been performed much on cats, only on dogs, so maybe medicine will improve. I’m sure it will.

The first couple weeks were very hard because I kept expecting her to rub up against my leg in the kitchen in anticipation of food, or sitting down at my feet while I wrote. She never was much of a touchy-feely cat. She didn’t like being held, or even petted much. I think that was because of the hoarding situation she grew up in and her early distrust of humans. But she showed her love in her own way. She’d follow me around the house. Everywhere I was, I’d look up and she’d be curled up somewhere close by. She always sat at my feet when I wrote. She always sat in the rocking chair in the living room when I watched TV.

I’ve had animals die before and I thought this would be easier since I had two others. But it wasn’t. It was just the same. Katusha didn’t eat for a week, and whenever I said I missed Rhea, which I said often, Sofia would run around looking for her. That was always a favorite game for Sofia and me, especially toward the end when I needed to give Rhea her medication and she’d hide from me. I’d say, “Where’s Rhea?” And Sofia would run all around the house, banging open cupboards and looking through closets until we found her. After a while, Sofia would look at me strangely when I said Rhea’s name. Initially she’d start to look around then, realizing Rhea’s scent was gone, would run to the patio window and look out. It makes sense that, since the last time she saw Rhea, Rhea was going outside in her carrier. So she must still be out there. Someday she’ll come back.

I have the urn holding her ashes on top of the bookcase where she used to sit. Someday I’ll get a cool cat urn, but for now the polished wood the crematorium gave me is fine. What I didn’t expect was the pawprint they included. I didn’t order it, so they must have just included it for free. But it’s beautiful, and it really made me cry.

As soon as I’m finished with revisions to my middle-grade mystery, I am going to return to a cat cafe cozy I was writing. The main cat in that novel is based on Najma, who passed away over thirteen years ago from a heart condition. Now, I’m creating a role for a cat based on Rhea as well. My animals never really die 🙂

 

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My Cat Rhea’s Experience With Stereotactic Radiosurgery

I posted this originally on my new My Cat Jeoffry blog, here, and here, but decided to cross-post here as well.

My cat, Rhea, recently underwent stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). I thought I’d write a post about it since, after the oncology vet recommended it, we tried to research it online but found very little. Especially about SRS and cats.

SRS is a new kind of radiation therapy – well, new to use for animals; it’s been used for humans for some time. Instead of traditional radiation, which isn’t as effective, and can take many multiple treatments, SRS can be administered as little as once, or up to a few times. And, because the vet takes a CT scan of the tumor beforehand, it’s delivered very precisely to the tumor. This means that there’s little chance of the radiation affecting any healthy, non-cancerous tissues. And, every time the animal is given a dose of radiation, s/he has to be anesthetized, which is always risky and can result in complications. So, the fewer treatments an animal has to have, the better.

Of course SRS is costly. Luckily, I had pet insurance that footed a big chunk of the bill. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

Rhea developed a tumor or the right side of her head, which grew very quickly. Above is a photo taken shortly after I first noticed it. I thought our dog, Sofia, had just played with her a bit too rough and she had an abscess. I took her to my regular vet who said it wasn’t an infection. She did some tests and it came back positive for cancer. So she referred me to a veterinary oncologist.

By the time I was able to get her in to see the oncologist – about three weeks later – it had grown substantially. It also seemed to be affecting her eyes. He did a full CT scan from her head to her chest and found that, thankfully, it hadn’t spread into her body; it was a sarcoma that was only above the bone on top of her head. The reason her eyes were affected was that it was growing so fast it was pulling the skin back, so she couldn’t close her eyes. This would mean I’d have to give her lots of eye drops, to keep her eyes moist. Anyway, the fact that the tumor was only on the top of her head made it ideal for SRS treatment.

The vet told me she would likely lose some hair on her head and when it grew back, it may be white. He also said some of the skin on the affected area could die. But the tumor was inoperable due to its size and location, and this was our only chance for her to have a full life (Rhea is 10 years old). Chemotherapy didn’t make any sense since it wasn’t metastasizing.

I was really scared! I was so afraid she was going to be in pain. I had several friends and family members who couldn’t eat for a long time after radiation because it burnt their mouths so. But both my regular and specialist vet said animals didn’t experience pain with radiation like humans often did. My regular vet said that’s the course of action she would definitely pursue if it were her pet. But I still worried. One of my friends referred me to a holistic vet and another to an animal communicator. I would have tried both if I had more money and time, but the tumor was getting bigger so quickly, I had no experience with animal communicators and had no idea what to expect and whether to trust one, they weren’t cheap, and my pet insurance plan pre-authorized my claims. So, I just went with it and trusted my oncology and regular vets’ opinions. And I prayed I wasn’t putting my cat through horrible pain.

So, Rhea had three days of SRS. I kept her at the hospital throughout because I felt like it was going to be traumatic to have to keep taking her there and back. So, I packed a little bag of food and treats and her eye medication. The man who administered the radiation called me every day with updates on how she did – which was well! When I picked her up, they gave her the little certificate below, signed by all the techs and the radiation administerer, along with the cute cape!

Everyone at AZ Veterinary Oncology was so wonderful, so supportive. I really appreciated all of their help, and that little certificate made me ridiculously happy!

When I got Rhea home, she seemed perfectly fine. She didn’t seem to be in pain at all. She went straight to her food bowl and feasted to her heart’s content, rubbed up against Sofia, then trotted upstairs and jumped from the balcony onto the top of the bookcase, always her favorite perch 🙂

Anyway, it’s been two weeks since the end of her SRS. We just went to the oncologist today for her check-up and he said the tumor has definitely shrunk, which I’d noticed but was afraid it was just wishful thinking on my part!

She honestly has not seemed to be in any pain whatsoever for the past two weeks. She’s been purring, wrapping herself around my feet, sitting at my desk while I work, rubbing up against Sofia, being tolerant toward our other cat, Katusha, (as usual), eating, drinking, pawing open cupboards and closet doors to explore, fitting herself into tiny spaces, making noise in the middle of the night, trying to get outside (I don’t let her, she is an indoor cat; but since she does like to explore the outdoors, I push her around in a little dog stroller 🙂 ) Basically, she’s been her usual self, and with all the purring, she seems perfectly happy. The only thing the doctor noticed is that she’d lost a little weight. I have noticed that some days she doesn’t eat as much as she normally does, although other days she does. So I’ve been trying to buy her her very favorite food, even if it’s not the healthiest 🙂

She has yet to lose any hair, although I suspect that still may be coming. I’m hoping that blasted tumor continues to shrink down to nothing, and never returns. For now, we can only hope she’ll continue her progress. I will keep you posted!

Below, today, enjoying the Arizona sun with Sofia 🙂

Update six weeks later (cross-posted here):

It’s now been a little over two months since the treatment. A couple of days after we came home from her two-week follow up, right after I wrote the last post, her hair began falling out – which I was expecting – but they exposed some burns on top of her head, where she had the treatment. I took her back to the doctor, and he told me they were indicative of burns from radiation and were to be expected. He gave me a topical steroid and told me to keep a cone over her head so that she couldn’t scratch or lick the burns.

I applied the steroid for a few weeks, but the wound area – some of the burns were open and pus-filled, seemed to keep growing. She also seemed to be depressed and in pain, as she wasn’t her playful self and wasn’t eating like normal. I took her back to him about two weeks ago and he said the burns looked like they were getting infected. So he gave me an antibiotic, a stronger steroid, and some pain medication.

It’s been two weeks since then and she is definitely much better. I can tell she’s no longer in pain – or at least not is as much pain as she was, as she’s running about, getting into things, playing with the dog, and is back to eating normally. She doesn’t like taking her meds, but what animal does 🙂

The burn still looks yucky – for lack of a better term – but it isn’t open and blistery and pus-filled. It now looks like it is scabbed over. Her tumor is still there but I do think it’s still shrinking. The doctor told me sometimes it takes months for it to go away or get down to a small size. He also told me it could come back or never go completely away.

So, I’m happy that she seems to feel better and that the burn area looks improved. But I know this could be a long journey, and that it could still not end well. If the tumor comes back or doesn’t go completely away, I really don’t want to put her through this again, especially since we went through over a month of dealing with open, pus-filled, potentially infected burn marks, and I know she was in pain at points. Not to mention, I don’t have a lot left in my insurance account and the treatments are very expense. So, basically I’m trying to brace myself for the worst while hoping and trying my hardest for the best.

Anyway, I just wanted to record my experiences here in case anyone else has a cat who goes through stereotactic radiosurgery / stereotactic radiation. There hasn’t been a whole lot written about the treatment, and my vet hadn’t had much experience with cats undergoing it – only dogs. So maybe we can benefit from each other’s personal experiences.