Stealth Tazzy

Taz and Calvin 2004

My day started like this: I woke up this morning at 3:45 and Taz wasn’t on the bed. When I sat up I “saw” him at the foot of the bed, lying on his side. I woke Charlie up and said “Check on Taz. I think he’s dead”. Charlie got up and started looking for Taz and I said “He’s at the foot of the bed, right there! He’s dead!” Charlie kept saying “Where?” I pointed to where I “saw” him. Charlie touched the place and it wasn’t Taz, just part of the blanket. Taz was just outside the bedroom door sitting on the rug. Charlie said "I think you were dreaming." But, I don't remember dreaming about him. I guess it's just on my mind so much these days.

Taz may be weakened and some days not feel well, but he still moves around pretty quick. He can be in one place and I go to get food or something. When I come back, he's gone. That happens all the time. Charlie calls him 'the grey ghost'.

I joined a 'feline-lymphoma' support group on line last week. It's amazing how many people are out there dealing with what Charlie and I have been living with since July. Some stories are encouraging, some are just plain heartbreaking to read. Everyone is very supportive and optimistic, for the most part. Of course, it's hard to follow someone's thread about their cat, and then it comes to a heartbreaking end. I have not been real active with it as far as posting. There are a couple I'm following and we correspond. I have posted information about Taz and have had quite a few responses. Mostly everyone is looking for different treatments and information like that. It does help to read about how other people are going through the same thing that we are going through.

I've always known how much we love our cats and dog and how attached we are to each of them. But, from what I've read from other people, we are not the only 'crazy' ones! We also realized how much people love their pets when we were taking Taz in each week for chemo. To some people, their pets ARE their kids. Thank goodness we have the advancements in health care for them.

Taz has days when he walks around the house and wants to be involved in everything. Then there are days when he just wants to be left alone. Of course, we don't leave him all alone. We're always petting him and talking to him and asking 'are you hungry?', etc. I'm sure he wonders why we fuss over him all the time. Thank goodness he isn't thinking every day about how long he'll be around......yesterday morning he came in the family room and jumped up on the coffee table. He saw the little fuzzy green worm toy that he likes on the couch. He came over and picked it up with his mouth and started biting it. It squeaked and I just thought how innocent these little souls are. He's still playing and he doesn't realize that that would be the furtherest thing from my mind if I was sick.

It makes me think of our cat, Calvin, who we adopted back when we lived in Monterey. We already had Rowdy, and Calvin was a stray who was living on our patio. We didn't feed him because we didn't want to encourage him to stay. But, stay he did. One evening, just before dark, I was in the kitchen. There were glass doors that went out onto the patio. I looked out and saw Calvin out there. There was a brown leaf on the concrete. He started playing with that leaf, just batting it around and chasing it. I thought it was amazing....here is this little cat who does not have a home and probably doesn't know where his next meal is coming from, and he's out here playing with a leaf! That was in March and in July, Calvin was still coming around. We invited him in and he never looked back. Patience IS a virtue!

More later.......