thirty days

yesterday, leanne took spike to the vet because his hair stank and it seemed to be coming from his mouth. he had also stopped eating. he had been drooling for a couple of weeks — but this was hardly anything odd. (temperamental) lovebug that he is, he always drools when you knead his neck and he sort of burrows in under your chin or high up on your sleeve. just last week after i had sat with him outside for awhile, rubbing his purring neck and behind his ears, him latched onto my coat sleeve, i walked away with a big wet patch on my soft brown faux-suede where he had nuzzled.

leanne was shocked when dr. bloom revealed a tumor the size of half a thumb glued under his tongue. squamous cell carcinoma, what he fears, in such a position in a feline, gives spike only thirty days more, at best. but he doesn’t look so good at all today and we don’t know if it’s the biopsy and the healing from that (his mouth was bleeding when we brought him home last night) and all the medicines or the tumor, the cancer, itself, but he is just tucked low to the ground, nose bowed down, occasionally bobbing his head up and down like he is in pain.

the tumor in his mouth particularly sucks because it only hurts him more to try to feed all the pills, which maybe only make him sick to his stomach, and he is not able to eat at all. we are sleeping at otivo to try to take care… of him.

today, it is thanksgiving and we brought fresh turkey from vacaville to otivo. i put a little under his nose and he went to devour it like he was really really famished. only he could barely even lick the bit of turkey and couldn’t take it into his mouth to bite or eat at all. he walked away, head bowed, looking sick to his stomach. we pureed the turkey in the blender with water and put the bowl next to him. he walked away from it and lowered his nose to the carpet, looking totally defeated.

he is so uncomfortable. he jumps in and out of the litterbox but it’s not clear what he does there. he can’t clean himself, so his fur is rough and smelly. he tries to nuzzle up to us like we are all used to him doing, and he purrs but he clearly can’t make himself comfortable. he can’t eat; he must be terribly hungry. he can’t meow… and that makes it so quiet here.
oh spike! what can we do?

we expect the real results of the biopsy tomorrow or saturday. but he is not lasting thirty days like this. we are worried about him suffering. i so don’t want to lose spike; he is such a part of our plans. he is what we think of when we try to find a place to live. will he be happy? will wanda and spike be able to reunite here? i am so sad i am beside myself that we could lose him so quickly, though that would be better than any long suffering. i am worried for leanne; i so don’t want her to shut down but this is what she does, she holds herself together and doesn’t let go; she went through such pain for so long when nooka had her cancer, usually just keeping it inside, even at the end. i so hope we can pull together through this though i hate to think of him leaving.