spookyevilone (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spookyevilone) wrote2011-09-20 02:15 pm
spookyevilone) wrote2011-09-20 02:15 pm
Entry tags:
This post brought to you by wayyy too much caffeine.
$Oldest_Cat went to the vet today to have a potentially cancerous ass lump removed. He had an anal sac explosion on the other side in July, so I thought this was another anal sac abscess but it couldn't be expressed.
Nothing says "You are the most important thing in my life" like trying to squeeze rotten stenchy ass-pus from a cat's anal sac for half an hour. And then the vet responded to my "Where do I lance this safely? I don't want my cat losing control of his ass sphincter and dripping shit all over my apartment for the rest of his life. Which will be short, because dripping shit is not to be tolerated, no matter how much I love him." with "Hey, probably a hideously aggressive form of ass cancer. Bring him in."
That phonecall established (as if it was in any doubt) that Bad Shit Happening To $Oldest_Cat is my emotional Kryptonite.
So today he went under the knife. Well, first he went under an ultrasound and so many needles that his cream and white fur was polkadotted red all over, which was actually pretty cool as a fashion but not so cool that it meant my cat had just had tiny bits of him ripped out with an aspiration needle. I may have to recreate the fashion with something slightly more hygienic, like a Sharpie. Or catsup. Because it has the word 'cat' in it, and it is red, and I can totally find a way that it's beneficial to his fur on some granola hippy blog somewhere. AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS KIDDING! But first he'd need chlorine damage. I can justify that. He's going to need a bath before he comes home, and there's chlorine in city water, and he's used to bathing in his own spit so tap water is probably pretty harsh on his fur. Thus, catsup. Totally.
My vet is awesome. She let me watch the surgery. I don't think she wanted to leave me alone in her waiting room when I was this hopped up on caffeine and anxiety. Leaving me unattended in this state often has interesting results, so she put me where she could see me. And also possibly knock my ass out with a surprise hit of Ketamine if she felt it necessary. Apparently I wasn't that obnoxious. Must try harder! So I got to pet my beloved cat's head while the vet removed a tumor the size of a shooter marble.
So that's what cancer looks like. Fuckin' ugly little bastard. That was the only thing I could think. I expected it to look like a water balloon made of glistening innard tissue, but it looked more like some sort of fucked up cauliflower floret made of skin.
Yes, of course I came home and aggressively ate a huge bowl of steamed cauliflower and pretended I was masticating the everlovin' hell out of potential ass-cancer. It's like you people don't even know me! Or maybe you do, because at least one of you imagined I would do something like this. And I did!
The vet would not let me keep the tumor. I begged, I pleaded, I offered to preserve it myself if she would only turn it over to me because hey, all those biology classes on dissection had to pay off somehow. I tried to argue that since it had come out of my cat, it was kind of like a kitten, only made of tumor, and that the little tumor-kitten belonged to me. She countered with things like "biohazard" and "proper disposal of medical waste". I think she just wanted to keep it for herself. I called it Terrible John the Bastard King of Assholery.* Except I shortened it to "Fuckin' ugly little bastard". I hope she keeps the name, at least.
I said we needed to cut it open to see if there was a hideous symbiotic twin hiding inside, and she did. Because my vet is made of awesome. Also, she needed a slice of it for the lab. But she totally did a dissection on the thing and let me watch. Sadly, nothing as neat as a wrinkled little face belligerently swearing vengeance was inside. That made this whole ass-cancer thing a lot less interesting than it could've been. Probably a good thing - if it'd opened eyes and started swearing at me, she'd have had to let me keep it.
The cat is staying at the vet overnight, because he is not waking up from the anesthesia as quickly as the vet would like, which wasn't really unexpected. She says 13 is geriatric for a cat. I told her I fully expect him to live forever, so that's like, zygote stage in the grand scheme of things. She then said something about his prognosis looking good but we won't know for certain until the biopsies come back and blah blah blah. It's like she didn't even hear the 'I expect him to be immortal and never die. It was in the contract!" part.
On the way home, I decided it would be a good idea to have a crappaccino. It was possibly not such a good idea. My soul is vibrating like a tuning fork, my speech has gone nearly Codeine-level incomprehensible, and I can't sit still. Synapses are firing so fast that it's very hard to construct a full sentence of text without chasing all the pretty lights of other subjects that are littering my head.
This is a preferable state of being to the sobbing wreck I was yesterday. Trust me.
Stupid cat. Stupid potential ass-cancer.
* The Bloggess. Read her.
Nothing says "You are the most important thing in my life" like trying to squeeze rotten stenchy ass-pus from a cat's anal sac for half an hour. And then the vet responded to my "Where do I lance this safely? I don't want my cat losing control of his ass sphincter and dripping shit all over my apartment for the rest of his life. Which will be short, because dripping shit is not to be tolerated, no matter how much I love him." with "Hey, probably a hideously aggressive form of ass cancer. Bring him in."
That phonecall established (as if it was in any doubt) that Bad Shit Happening To $Oldest_Cat is my emotional Kryptonite.
So today he went under the knife. Well, first he went under an ultrasound and so many needles that his cream and white fur was polkadotted red all over, which was actually pretty cool as a fashion but not so cool that it meant my cat had just had tiny bits of him ripped out with an aspiration needle. I may have to recreate the fashion with something slightly more hygienic, like a Sharpie. Or catsup. Because it has the word 'cat' in it, and it is red, and I can totally find a way that it's beneficial to his fur on some granola hippy blog somewhere. AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS KIDDING! But first he'd need chlorine damage. I can justify that. He's going to need a bath before he comes home, and there's chlorine in city water, and he's used to bathing in his own spit so tap water is probably pretty harsh on his fur. Thus, catsup. Totally.
My vet is awesome. She let me watch the surgery. I don't think she wanted to leave me alone in her waiting room when I was this hopped up on caffeine and anxiety. Leaving me unattended in this state often has interesting results, so she put me where she could see me. And also possibly knock my ass out with a surprise hit of Ketamine if she felt it necessary. Apparently I wasn't that obnoxious. Must try harder! So I got to pet my beloved cat's head while the vet removed a tumor the size of a shooter marble.
So that's what cancer looks like. Fuckin' ugly little bastard. That was the only thing I could think. I expected it to look like a water balloon made of glistening innard tissue, but it looked more like some sort of fucked up cauliflower floret made of skin.
Yes, of course I came home and aggressively ate a huge bowl of steamed cauliflower and pretended I was masticating the everlovin' hell out of potential ass-cancer. It's like you people don't even know me! Or maybe you do, because at least one of you imagined I would do something like this. And I did!
The vet would not let me keep the tumor. I begged, I pleaded, I offered to preserve it myself if she would only turn it over to me because hey, all those biology classes on dissection had to pay off somehow. I tried to argue that since it had come out of my cat, it was kind of like a kitten, only made of tumor, and that the little tumor-kitten belonged to me. She countered with things like "biohazard" and "proper disposal of medical waste". I think she just wanted to keep it for herself. I called it Terrible John the Bastard King of Assholery.* Except I shortened it to "Fuckin' ugly little bastard". I hope she keeps the name, at least.
I said we needed to cut it open to see if there was a hideous symbiotic twin hiding inside, and she did. Because my vet is made of awesome. Also, she needed a slice of it for the lab. But she totally did a dissection on the thing and let me watch. Sadly, nothing as neat as a wrinkled little face belligerently swearing vengeance was inside. That made this whole ass-cancer thing a lot less interesting than it could've been. Probably a good thing - if it'd opened eyes and started swearing at me, she'd have had to let me keep it.
The cat is staying at the vet overnight, because he is not waking up from the anesthesia as quickly as the vet would like, which wasn't really unexpected. She says 13 is geriatric for a cat. I told her I fully expect him to live forever, so that's like, zygote stage in the grand scheme of things. She then said something about his prognosis looking good but we won't know for certain until the biopsies come back and blah blah blah. It's like she didn't even hear the 'I expect him to be immortal and never die. It was in the contract!" part.
On the way home, I decided it would be a good idea to have a crappaccino. It was possibly not such a good idea. My soul is vibrating like a tuning fork, my speech has gone nearly Codeine-level incomprehensible, and I can't sit still. Synapses are firing so fast that it's very hard to construct a full sentence of text without chasing all the pretty lights of other subjects that are littering my head.
This is a preferable state of being to the sobbing wreck I was yesterday. Trust me.
Stupid cat. Stupid potential ass-cancer.
* The Bloggess. Read her.