Friday Cat Blogging

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Miss Lucy wants you to see that she still has a lovely figure after two mastectomies.

Miss Lucy is on borrowed time, even by cat standards. A few weeks after the second mastectomy last June — thirteen months after the first one — I felt some more lumps near where one of her mammaries used to be. I called the vet and told him I didn’t want to put her through any more treatment. She’d had it with vets and surgery and medicine. I weaned her off the medication she was on and prepared to watch her deteriorate to cancer.

Except that she didn’t. The lump disappeared, and she’s been happy as a clam since. She’s eating well, purrs a lot, and bosses me around vigorously. I think if she makes it through Christmas with no signs of disease I’ll call the vet to tell him she’s not dying after all.

19 thoughts on “Friday Cat Blogging”

  1. Miss Lucy is a beauty. I’m so glad to hear that she is doing well and I hope she has many years left to spend lounging around on silk pillows.

    Having loved and lost furry children in my life, I know that the bonds we forge with our pets is remarkable. We are currently owned by two cats and a dog, all rescued from a local shelter. The cats have assigned themselves to specific family members, but I am their Mommy.

    Best wishes to you and Miss Lucy; give her an extra scritch under the chin from a fellow pet lover.

  2. I had a cat (or she had me) named Ornary born under my bed and slept with me from the time she could climb the bedspread with tiny claws. Years later when I got married, the cat undertook a campaign to get rid of my new bride. Several times per night the cat would wake, strech and walk back and forth across my wife ’til she was awake, and then go back to sleep. The cat, would, I mean. An hour later she would repeat. I did not know for days, and I put the cat out of the BR. We were newlyweds then; in later years I would have reconsidered.They buried the hatchet when Margaret (my first wife) became pregnant. The cat sensed our daughter-to-be and would spend any chance between Margaret’s legs with her head and front paws on the growing tummy – and purr. anyway, I am glad to hear your feline family is doing well.

  4. Good on you, Miss Lucy! My two kitties, Seamus and Fiona, send their best wishes (and I’ll add a prayer to Bastet–can’t hurt!).

  6. Daisy and Houston, my two kitty owners and landlords, after reading this article have asked me to type their great huzzahs for Miss Lucy. Live long and prosper, they asked me to say. (they spend much time watching tv, especially the oldies channels). Anyway, it’s nice to hear of some good in life, helps balance this old mans life.

  7. Best wishes to you and Miss Lucy; give her an extra scritch under the chin from a fellow pet lover.

    I did, and Miss Lucy says “Brrrrr rrrrr rrrrr nnn.” I think this is Cattish for “Life is good.”

  8. My fuzzy foursome and I are pullin’ for ya Miss Lucy. You’ll fool em all and live to a ripe old age. Besides which, I can’t even entertain negative thoughts after what happened to Waffles. Fight the good fight in his name.

  9. awwwwww, what a cutie Ms. Lucy is!!!!!!I am so glad to hear things are going well for her.I lost my last kitty to leg cancer about 6 months ago and I miss her like crazy(it seems like all my pets got old at the same time).

    My other half won’t let me have another cat since we have the parrots. Sammy can meow, but it just isn’t the same…He refuses to purr or cough up a single hairball, wouldn’t you think he could humor me?

    For several months after my cat”monkey” died sammy would call her”Here kitty kitty kitty, meow meow!”(the cat used to HATE that..she would come running to get food then learn it was only the damn bird teasing – I swear she would have flipped the bird off if she could have)..It is ironic that the bird missed the cat, but he sure did for awhile…the whole situation reminded me of how awesome pets are…and it reminds me I am a sucker for a fuzzy(or feathered) face.

    I am off to serve omlets to parrots for lunch,but don’t tell Lucy.

    Hugs to Lucy from Iowa 🙂

  10. That’s wonderful news, Maha! My Girls, Nadine and Mazurka, would like to send their best wishes to Miss Lucy and you.

  11. If vets could speak Cattish, the treatment of feline cancers might go easier on the patients. Miss Lucy sure showed em, by just getting well. She looks gloriously healthy in her photo. Maybe not a big fan of the paparazzi though?

  12. justme — Once upon a time I had two cats. Cat #1, Muffin, was found and adopted as a tiny kitten in 1976 (she was a bicentennial kitten). A year later I adopted Basil.

    About 1992 or so, they started to calm down and accept each other. Sometimes. Muffin was definitely the Alpha cat, but Basil was more of a Zappa cat. He was never aggressive but delighted in teasing Muffin so she would get mad and chase him. They reminded me of Margaret Dumont and Groucho Marx.

    In spite of the fact that Muffin was extremely emaciated when she was a foundling kitten, she recovered and was robustly healthy for many years. She grew older and older, but didn’t change much. Basil, however, developed multiple health problems in his old age. Finally, Basil died of kidney failure in 1996.

    Within just a couple of days of Basil’s death, Muffin finally got old. She developed a limp from arthritis and stopped cleaning her coat. She survived a couple more years, but with Basil gone she just wasn’t the same cat.

    With Miss Lucy, I don’t allow myself to think she’s going to be with me for years and years. Long-term survival is just about unheard of with the kind of cancer she has. It’ll come back eventually. But she’s already lasted longer than she was expected to when she was first diagnosed. So, we’ll just take it as it goes.

  15. There is a saying, something like:

    Cats and women do as they please; men and dogs should get used to it

    The look in Ms.Lucy’s eyes seems to indicate she knows this.

    Just this morning I was hugging my nail gals 17 yr old cat(the shop mascot)…he has had 3 bouts with cancer in his life and each time he has shocked vets by rebounding.”Travis” is not about to let any vet decide his fate….My nail gal has been saying for 5 years how Travis won’t be around another year , to which he replies with a look that says”bite me!”Sometimes I think the cat may out live us all just to teach us how little we really do know.

    Thanks for a cat blog Friday!It’s a purr-fect photo , thanks to Ms.Lucy for posing for it.A reminder to anyone in the market for a new pet to please consider adopting a pet from your local shelter.There are so many “unwanted” pets there just waiting for a place to belong, and everyone deserves to be loved in their lifetime.To those who have adopted from their local shelter already:Thanks!

  18. I have now tried twice to post my cat story and twice my computer has shut down in the middle of my story. So I will take that as a hint that telling other people my pet story is about as welcome as posting my family pictures. So I will try to squeeze in this thought before my computer crashes again – we had 17 years with our cat, and when you think about it, that is about the same amount of time that our children live with us before going out on their own (if we’re lucky). Good Luck maha and Lucy.

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