Eat Your Heart Out

It's been a rough month here at the Dragon Lair.

Phoenix and I have felt like we're competing in the world's most sadistic reality show. To see who can have more emergency trips to the hospital, who can have more tests, who can have the worst test ever (tm), who can scare the crap out of the rest of the family the most, etc.

We're taking the same amount of medications, even many of the same medications--only the dosage is different. When the hospital ran out of Pheen's latest medication, the SU hunted down our former pharmacist, who left our pharmacy because Shoppers appears to be worse than the Hellmouth to work for. Sadly, we're stuck there, with the total morons they replaced her with, because the other pharms are rarely ever open. I don't have enough health to have a pharm that keeps fucking bank hours. And neither does my poor little Boo...

My former pharmacist didn't just fill my babies prescription; she pre-cut it into quarter tablets for him. See? She's amazing.

He had his first dose last night, fighting it like pure hell, of course, as he does all his pills.

This afternoon, I woke up, fumbling and whimpering to try to get my screaming body out of bed. You know, the usual. As I began to limp to the bathroom, I heard papers downstairs. Lots of papers. Like somebody was rolling in a recycling bin.

What the hell was Boo doing down there?

He used to do that when he heard me wake up, and wanted me to come and say hi downstairs. He never understood that it hurt me to take the stairs, and he'll never know.

I'd been summoned. So, clinging to the wall, I started the slow agonising limp down the stairs. My eyes were trying to tear up, and fear was trying to freak out, because he hadn't done this in months. I was trying to convince myself that it was a good thing he wanted me...

And then, having heard me on the steps, he crunched food.

My heart did something in my chest that was really really painful, but...so so happy.

I got down the stairs as fast as could, shaking, tears splatting, joy throbbing my chest like I was outdoing the Grinch at Christmas.

And then, when he knew I'd gotten far enough that I could see him, he popped his head up to beam at me, and then went right back to crunching food.

Pheen hasn't been able to eat food since...even before his diagnosis. It was why I pushed for an emergency appt at the vet. He went from 14 lbs of Maine Coon power and muscle to...the most horrifying emaciated....He wasn't even 8 lbs by the time we could get him a vet appt. In just a couple of days, the cancer ate him, and it wouldn't let him eat.

And for the last month, he still couldn't eat anything. He wanted food, he would cry for it. But his body wouldn't let him eat it.

Once again, I had to be strangely grateful for my illness, because I could understand. I've been so hungry, I've cried--not a good place for someone to be who, for years, was tortured by being starved--as my body wouldn't let me swallow food. I would retch and either dry heave or throw up blood, if I even tried to put food in my mouth. I felt so horrible for my boy, because I knew how much it hurt, both mentally and physically, because it feels like your stomach is being ripped out, because the acid just keeps churning and your stomach starts to digest itself.

So I knew the meds to get him for nausea and acid reflux and reducing the acid in your stomach--and he got them all--but I also knew they didn't help enough. I still have to force food down. It's more than fighting down each meal, or each mouthful. With each motion to chew, my body gags and tries to throw up. But I fight. Like all the pain, I fight, and I win even when I lose. Because I have to. Because I have to be here. Because even as badly broken as I am, my family still wants me. They need me. I fight through every test, every hospital stay, every migraine, and worse, by forcing myself to hold on to the guys in my mind. Berating myself, when it hurts so so much and I just want it all to stop, that I can't. I can't ever give up. Because if I don't come home, the guys wouldn't understand...

I don't know if Boo knows that not coming home again is an option. I do know, with certainty, it's not one he'd ever willingly take. We may not share genes, but we might as well have. From the moment we met, the world had united the two most stubborn people ever to exist.

It made his early childhood very...interesting.

His will has managed things with his illness that his doctors can't explain. After his seizure, his blood test read his glucose as undetectable. It also read his white blood cells as undetectable. He shouldn't have been alive, let alone conscious. His only chance was a blood transfusion, and they didn't expect him to survive it. They were certain the cancer had reached his bone marrow, and consumed it completely. He wouldn't be able to make white blood cells. He could die from the bacteria that had been present in his body his whole life. If he did survive the transfusion, they said he would need one every few days, just to keep living. They didn't know if he could ever come home again.

But that wasn't what happened.

We worried like utter hell, beyond every agony. The transfusion went fine. I even met his donor, who is possibly the most mellow cat in existence. He was half gooed, casually washing his face, as he was being my superhero and helping save my dearest little boy.

They kept Pheen in the hospital for two days, but I think the second day was because they were confused. The blood transfusion gave him a tiny bit of white blood cells. The next test was routine, just being absolutely sure his body wasn't rejecting anything.

He was frickin full of white blood cells.

Cue the doctors all looking at each other in mass confusion before the episode of House cuts to commercial.

Trying to figure out WTAF was happening, they looked closer at his blood. The white blood cells were immature. They shouldn't be there.

Ruling out the theory that the massive worry of family can make white blood cells spontaneously create themselves, they were left with only one explanation. His body was weak, but his marrow was fine. Being so depleted and dealing with so much, his body didn't catch on to the crisis until the Red Alert klaxon was screaming. Going 'Oh Shit!', it did something it shouldn't be able to do: it vomited all the white blood cells it had into his blood stream, no matter what stage of development they were at. Immature white blood cells can't brawl like when they're all grown up, but they can fight, and there was A LOT of them.

Yet still, with all that will, my boy couldn't get down food. Absolutely rejecting the feeding tube option, the SU has been feeding Pheen pated food by syringe. Usually four feedings a day, taking about an hour each time. As well as feeding him all of his meds.

Yes, my SU is amazing. Utterly exhausted, but so wonderful. Even more so, because, like me, there is enraged irritation when other humans--Hell yes, I still refuse to call them people. I use that term as a respectful title, for life that is precious and treats others so. And humans? They're the lifeform that deserve it the least--anyway, there is very nearly stabby stabby stab at the scorn, at what they see as a silly waste.

Why is it that the creatures who deserve life least can't be the ones who die miserably with cancer? I know life isn't fair, life is pain--I know my Princess Bride. But sometimes things are so far in the wrong direction you just....

But this afternoon, in my kitchen, was pure and total joy. When I stepped into the corner, where the saucers are kept, Phoenix jogged over purring, shifting from foot to foot in his excitement. My baby wanted food, and hell no was he getting Pate.

I grabbed a chair, chatting to him the whole time about nom-noms, and managed--through my own fierce stubbornness--to get on it and get the box of the Fancy Feast with gravy down without falling and splitting my self to pieces of my Floor of Doom.

And I think I was both laughing and crying with hope and joy as I put down a spoonful of diced chicken with gravy.

Phoenix attacked it, purring.

He even did a kill shake.

Shaking with overwhelming joy for my boy, I think I was making flaily arms. I might have been shifting from foot to foot myself in my excitement. I wanted to cook my baby a whole chicken, for the bliss of seeing him able to eat it.

Hissy had crept down the stairs, out of the library of shame, sadness, and safety (tm), but she was staying at the foot of the stairs. Sighing, I brought some on a saucer to where she was, and then raced back to flailing and watching Phoenix scarf with glee.

And then I made myself fumble up the stairs again, and then fumble right back down, so I could keep watching as I called the SU.

My partner deserves so many things that I can never give, but good news? Today, I had a blessed chunk of that, and someone needed it even more than me...

Now, pardon me, I'm going to post this mess without proofing it. Yes, really. Because, right now, I need to risk more disaster on the stairs, just in case someone is feeling a little nommy....