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verushka70So the day after Christmas, after I came home from seeing Sherlock Holmes with my 3 sisters, which was a total blast, I was snuggling with my cats and my dog and I felt my cat Kako's armpit except farther down, closer to her flank than her armpit. I realized I felt another lump about the size of a shelled almond, and several small bumps, like the size of tiny seeds, like a birdseed. I had a sudden, terrible sinking feeling. It hasn't even been 6 months since the original tumor was removed.
So that was Sat. 12/26. I called the vet Mon AM 12/28 and he asked if I could bring her in that day. I had a dentist appointment at 11:30am but I had time in the afternoon, so I brought her in at 3:30pm in the afternoon. He shaved off the hair there and felt it and said he could remove the tumor again but since there were several other small ones, he felt strongly that he should refer me to a veterinary oncologist. So I said Okay. He called the vet he wanted to refer me to, then put me on the phone and I made the appointment for Mon 1/4/10. The veterinary oncologist is in Aurora which is like 35 miles away, which doesn't seem like a big deal, except in Chicago area traffic, this can easily take an hour or more depending on rush hour and weather; I have to take I-290 to I-88.
In the week's time I had between making the appointment and keeping it, I went online and read up on basal cell tumors and basal cell carcinomas in cats. It was all very encouraging. The vast majority are benign and non-metastatic, but some are "locally aggressive" and recurrent. Only a very small number (about 10%, per the Merck Veterinary Manual online) turn out to be malignant, and of those, metastases is rare. I figured, okay, so she's got a locally aggressive form.
I mean, even back in June and July before the original tumor was removed -- as well as now -- Kako has never acted sick nor lost her appetite nor changed her behavior or activity level. I know that's basically how you can tell when a pet is sick -- they aren't eating, they aren't as active or they're sluggish and lethargic, etc. So since I had never seen any of that, and wasn't seeing it now, I figured Kako was probably fine and it was just one of the locally aggressive basal cell tumors that are common in cats, according to what I read.
Fortunately my bf and I routinely go almost as far to go to a particular movie theater complex that's "not ghetto" -- my bf's terminology, although it is pretty much true (unlike most of the theater complexes within easy driving distance of both our homes), so I'm familiar with the route to the veterinary oncologists. I scheduled it at 3pm yesterday, so I could leave before rush hour started (mostly), so it only took 45 minutes to get there. I was actually 15 minutes early, which just goes to show that my chronic lateness can be shocked right out of me with desperate fear, as it often was with my mom's and my step-dad's oncologist appointments. Sigh. It's only my own job, classes, social engagements, etc. that I'm late to...
So first the oncology tech, and then the oncology vet examines Kako and feels the lumps, gets the history. She explains the previous tumor biopsy results to me -- not that I didn't understand them (I am a nurse, after all) and explains to me that most of these tumors are benign but some are locally aggressive and recurrent. She felt around and none of Kako's lymph nodes were swollen, so there seemed to be no lymph node involvement -- a good sign. I explained her behavior and appetite have not changed, she is still as active and bouncy as her usual self, and never acted sick, even with the original tumor in the summer. The vet is very reassuring, etc. and says they'll want to do bloodwork, some chest x-rays, maybe abdominal ultrasound to see if there are any other small masses or lumps elsewhere in her abdomen.
She tells me this will all take about an hour and a half, so I can go get lunch or run errands. I explain that I'm not from around there but I'll go get some lunch. She gives me an "estimate" on the cost of the diagnostics, which is $885. At the reception desk, they tell me I have to make a down payment of 50%, so $440. I do. I leave at 3:45pm and go to a nearby Panera bread, get food and a latte, and read the copy of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (yes, I have completely fallen for the late Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, and just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire last week, and finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo right before xmas) that I have on my smartphone.
I come back at 5:15pm, exactly 90 minutes later. The vet is out in the waiting room talking to other pet owners whose pets are in for chemo. The oncology vet tech who initially brought me and Kako back comes to talk to me and says all the diagnostic testing is done and I can have Kako with me now. She takes me back to... a comfy room with sofa and soft wingback chair.
Right then I know it's bad. Because I know from my stepdad and my mom, and from my own ER nursing job, they only ever bring you to the "family room" with the soft furniture to deliver the hard news. So I sit, and I let Kako out of her pet carrier, and I hold her and she sniffs around, and I wait for the vet.
So she comes about 15 minutes later, apologizes for making me wait, which is okay because I can see that (1) she's really busy and (2) I've already seen her in action in the waiting room talking to other pet owners whose pets are in for chemo. Then she tells me the bad news, and says she herself is very surprised: it's already metastasized to Kako's lungs. And they found 3 more little masses deeper in her abdomen. However, her blood work was excellent -- everything WNL (within normal limits), which totally supports my statements that she's never changed her behavior or appetite. Her liver and kidney function are good.
So then the vet tells me that if we do nothing, she'll most likely start showing respiratory symptoms in the next 2-3 months. She says we can do chemo, chemo and surgery, or chemo/surgery/radiation. In Kako's case she suggests only chemo or chemo and surgery because the cancer is already to spread out in Kako's lungs and body for radiation to be useful, and chemo will slow or stop the progression for a time.
She tells me that chemo in pets is not like chemo in humans, that it's not as aggressively done, so the pets usually don't get as sick, their fur doesn't fall out, etc. and they often don't have bad side effects like people suffer. She mentions some possible chemo agents; ironically, one of them, carboplatin, was mentioned as a possible chemo for my mom's treatment (although she ended up getting cis-platin instead, in combination with 2 other chemo agents). However, she has worked up estimates for all treatment modalities -- chemo alone, chemo with surgery, and chemo with radiation and surgery. Estimates. Like you get on a car.
I'm just kind of numb, thinking about the day after the day after xmas, when I went to see Avatar in 3D with my bf. For some reason, that night -- I figured it was finding the new tumors in my cat the night before -- I started crying at the end of Avatar, despite the happy ending, and I couldn't stop for like 20 minutes. I cried in the car, just sobbing, and finally my bf was like, "Are you okay?" and I was like, "No, I'm not" and he's like, "What's wrong?" and I'm like "I don't know." I finally stopped crying and we stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat, and I was really hungry, and I was also PMSing, so I figured that was the reason for all the tears. But right in the middle of eating my food, I put down my fork and looked at my bf and he was like, "What?" and just said, "I have a really bad feeling." And he said, "About what?" and I said, "I don't know, I just suddenly had a really bad feeling that something really bad is going to happen." He says, "To you or me?" I said, "I don't know, I just know something bad is going to happen."
So I'm listening to the vet and her voice is starting to get farther and farther away, and I'm getting numb, thinking, this is the thing I got the bad feeling about -- I think -- or is it? is there something else still waiting, something worse? and also thinking, Again? I have to go through this cancer and chemo thing with another loved one, again? Haven't I been through it enough with my stepdad and mom? Is the fuckin' house cursed or diseased? Because they've all lived in it for years -- stepdad, mom, my cats and me -- and it's making me wonder if it's the house, or lead paint, or who knows what.
I finally ask the vet how much longer the cat has if I do nothing vs. if I do chemo vs. if I do chemo and surgery. She says, "She would start having respiratory symptoms and difficulty breathing in the next 2-3 months. She would probably have 3-6 months if you did nothing. With chemo she can have a good quality of life for 9-12 months longer." I'm thinking in my mind, good quality of life? this is palliative, not curative; I know that. I ask if it's really a good quality of life, is she going to be sick and miserable. The vet explains that since chemo in pets is milder than in humans, typically the worst that would happen with the agent she would use on my cat is her whiskers might fall out after 2-3 treatments.
At this point, Kako is pissed off, we've already been there for like 3.5 hours, and the vet says, "We can schedule you for chemo, I'd like to start it in the next week or two, the sooner the better -- have you got any time this week?" and I explain that my shift, 2:30pm-3am, kind of fucks with me, so later in the week isn't good. She says, maybe half-joking, that we could even do a chemo today. I say, Fine. Let's do it. She says, "Today?" I said, We're already here, she's already pissed off, she's already upset about coming to the vet... and if 'the sooner the better'...
The vet agrees and says we'll get her started and it'll save money, too, since I already had the blood work done today, and they can use that for the pre-chemo blood work. Whoopee. That saves me like $95. I don't really care about the cost; I have a lot of money in the bank (relatively speaking -- I mean, I could afford to buy another Toyota Echo, like the one I have, outright, in cash, or maybe even a bare bones, stripped down, no-options Scion, but I'm by no means wealthy).
I ask the vet, prefacing it by saying that I understand that she said that this type of metastatic basal cell carcinoma is very rare in cats, if they have any idea of etiology, given that we now know some cancers in humans seem to be a combination of genetics, environmental exposure, and viruses. She says with something this rare they just don't know because there isn't enough research on it, but asks about the living arrangement since I already told her my stepdad and mom also had cancer. I tell her we've all been living in the same 3 flat building. She suggests I get the building tested for radon and explains that when she moved here, she and her husband bought a house and the home inspector suggested they get it tested for radon, so they did... and found out that the radon levels were "through the roof" and required that they install a special filter on their forced air heat and central air.
I thank her for the suggestion and then I'm just... numb. They take Kako away again, and I go back out to the waiting room with my estimates, and sit down and think, So this is where I am again, in a waiting room at an oncology center, am I ever going to get away from this shit? wtf? I call my one older sister, at whose house last night I had dinner and visited with two of my nephews. I had told her about the tumors coming back and I was all alarmist and she was all, "It'll probably be okay, don't go to the cancer place immediately, you said yourself most of them are non-malignant and non-metastatic" (because I'd told her what I'd read online at PubMed and the Merck Veterinary Manual online). And she's silent for a long moment after I tell her that the cancer is in Kako's lungs and then she said she was so very sorry. I think she felt bad that she kept telling me not to be alarmist and then I turned out to be right.
She asked me did I want her to call other siblings and I said, No -- yes -- I don't know; okay, I guess so, because I myself don't want to talk to anyone. We hang up and I text my bf and he says he's sorry. He's sorry, she's sorry, I'm sorry, we're all sorry. Sorry doesn't do any good, though.
I'm too upset to read anymore, and I listen to the 9 receptionists (okay, that's an exaggeration; maybe only 6-7) paging Neurology and ICU and think, Wow, this is some animal hospital -- Neurology? ICU? I mean, I didn't even know there were Neurology units in animal hospitals. It's like "the Mayo Clinic for pets" one of the receptionists tells me. Turns out it's also a 24 hour a day animal hospital. Twenty four hours a day, just like a real hospital. I'm kind of amazed. It seems like, if your pet has to have cancer -- and I guess the stars are aligned in such away that mine does -- this is the hospital to come to. They have a veterinary radiation oncologist on staff twenty four hours a day. I mean, this is like the Northwestern University Medical Center for pets.
At any rate. The cat is extremely pissed off, I find out later -- so much so that they had to sedate her. Then after the chemo treatment they use a reversal agent. "Like Narcan?" I ask the oncology tech (because that's what we use on heroin and opiate ODs in the ER, like people who take too much Vicodin. "Something like that, but different, because we don't use the same opiates in pets," she tells me. So the cat is back to normal now -- which is, pissed off and stressed. She vomited, too, they told me, but it was before the chemo, when they were trying to start the IV, and was most likely from stress. (This makes me feel terrible for putting Kako through it all in one day, but the oncology tech tells me this is not uncommon. Sigh.)
So then they give her back to me and I pay like another $300 and then I ask the receptionists to watch her in her kitty carrier so I can go out and warm up my car because we're in the grip of this horrible cold snap here, it's like 5 degrees F outside, and Kako never goes outside so she's completely unused to this.
While I was typing all this up, my regular vet called me at 7:20AM when he got in to his office because he was reading the faxed info that the oncologist faxed to his office -- the diagnostics, the treatment plan, the lab work, etc. I have to bring her in for a CBC (complete blood count) in 7-10 days. He says we can probably do it next Monday, although he himself is supposed to go in for a hernia repair surgery on Wed. 1/14, so he'll try to have the lab fax the results directly to my veterinary oncologist, and mail a copy to me.
When we got home, Kako went straight to her food dish (I had had to keep her fasting from breakfast onward in case of surgical biopsy, sedation, etc.) Then she disappeared. She comes when I call but she doesn't want anything to do with me or the other cats. (She never wants anything to do with the dog but she tolerates him now as much as she usually does.) So now Kako hasn't wanted to be near me all night. She wasn't sleeping in her regular spot (either in my bed or on a radiator on top of a big, coffee table book), either. She looked like she'd been salivating so I gave her some of the anti-nausea medication she is supposed to get because that's one of the symptoms of nausea in cats.
Oh, yeah. I pinch-hit for the 2009 due South Seekrit Santa. My story was Neither Expose Nor Extinguish, NC-17, Fraser/Kowalski, Stella Bonasera (CSI:NY). Technically this is a xover but all you need to know about CSI:NY is that Melina Kanakaredes, who played Victoria on DS, plays Stella Bonasera on CSI:NY. It's really more like Stella does a cameo than a true xover.
So that was Sat. 12/26. I called the vet Mon AM 12/28 and he asked if I could bring her in that day. I had a dentist appointment at 11:30am but I had time in the afternoon, so I brought her in at 3:30pm in the afternoon. He shaved off the hair there and felt it and said he could remove the tumor again but since there were several other small ones, he felt strongly that he should refer me to a veterinary oncologist. So I said Okay. He called the vet he wanted to refer me to, then put me on the phone and I made the appointment for Mon 1/4/10. The veterinary oncologist is in Aurora which is like 35 miles away, which doesn't seem like a big deal, except in Chicago area traffic, this can easily take an hour or more depending on rush hour and weather; I have to take I-290 to I-88.
In the week's time I had between making the appointment and keeping it, I went online and read up on basal cell tumors and basal cell carcinomas in cats. It was all very encouraging. The vast majority are benign and non-metastatic, but some are "locally aggressive" and recurrent. Only a very small number (about 10%, per the Merck Veterinary Manual online) turn out to be malignant, and of those, metastases is rare. I figured, okay, so she's got a locally aggressive form.
I mean, even back in June and July before the original tumor was removed -- as well as now -- Kako has never acted sick nor lost her appetite nor changed her behavior or activity level. I know that's basically how you can tell when a pet is sick -- they aren't eating, they aren't as active or they're sluggish and lethargic, etc. So since I had never seen any of that, and wasn't seeing it now, I figured Kako was probably fine and it was just one of the locally aggressive basal cell tumors that are common in cats, according to what I read.
Fortunately my bf and I routinely go almost as far to go to a particular movie theater complex that's "not ghetto" -- my bf's terminology, although it is pretty much true (unlike most of the theater complexes within easy driving distance of both our homes), so I'm familiar with the route to the veterinary oncologists. I scheduled it at 3pm yesterday, so I could leave before rush hour started (mostly), so it only took 45 minutes to get there. I was actually 15 minutes early, which just goes to show that my chronic lateness can be shocked right out of me with desperate fear, as it often was with my mom's and my step-dad's oncologist appointments. Sigh. It's only my own job, classes, social engagements, etc. that I'm late to...
So first the oncology tech, and then the oncology vet examines Kako and feels the lumps, gets the history. She explains the previous tumor biopsy results to me -- not that I didn't understand them (I am a nurse, after all) and explains to me that most of these tumors are benign but some are locally aggressive and recurrent. She felt around and none of Kako's lymph nodes were swollen, so there seemed to be no lymph node involvement -- a good sign. I explained her behavior and appetite have not changed, she is still as active and bouncy as her usual self, and never acted sick, even with the original tumor in the summer. The vet is very reassuring, etc. and says they'll want to do bloodwork, some chest x-rays, maybe abdominal ultrasound to see if there are any other small masses or lumps elsewhere in her abdomen.
She tells me this will all take about an hour and a half, so I can go get lunch or run errands. I explain that I'm not from around there but I'll go get some lunch. She gives me an "estimate" on the cost of the diagnostics, which is $885. At the reception desk, they tell me I have to make a down payment of 50%, so $440. I do. I leave at 3:45pm and go to a nearby Panera bread, get food and a latte, and read the copy of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (yes, I have completely fallen for the late Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, and just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire last week, and finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo right before xmas) that I have on my smartphone.
I come back at 5:15pm, exactly 90 minutes later. The vet is out in the waiting room talking to other pet owners whose pets are in for chemo. The oncology vet tech who initially brought me and Kako back comes to talk to me and says all the diagnostic testing is done and I can have Kako with me now. She takes me back to... a comfy room with sofa and soft wingback chair.
Right then I know it's bad. Because I know from my stepdad and my mom, and from my own ER nursing job, they only ever bring you to the "family room" with the soft furniture to deliver the hard news. So I sit, and I let Kako out of her pet carrier, and I hold her and she sniffs around, and I wait for the vet.
So she comes about 15 minutes later, apologizes for making me wait, which is okay because I can see that (1) she's really busy and (2) I've already seen her in action in the waiting room talking to other pet owners whose pets are in for chemo. Then she tells me the bad news, and says she herself is very surprised: it's already metastasized to Kako's lungs. And they found 3 more little masses deeper in her abdomen. However, her blood work was excellent -- everything WNL (within normal limits), which totally supports my statements that she's never changed her behavior or appetite. Her liver and kidney function are good.
So then the vet tells me that if we do nothing, she'll most likely start showing respiratory symptoms in the next 2-3 months. She says we can do chemo, chemo and surgery, or chemo/surgery/radiation. In Kako's case she suggests only chemo or chemo and surgery because the cancer is already to spread out in Kako's lungs and body for radiation to be useful, and chemo will slow or stop the progression for a time.
She tells me that chemo in pets is not like chemo in humans, that it's not as aggressively done, so the pets usually don't get as sick, their fur doesn't fall out, etc. and they often don't have bad side effects like people suffer. She mentions some possible chemo agents; ironically, one of them, carboplatin, was mentioned as a possible chemo for my mom's treatment (although she ended up getting cis-platin instead, in combination with 2 other chemo agents). However, she has worked up estimates for all treatment modalities -- chemo alone, chemo with surgery, and chemo with radiation and surgery. Estimates. Like you get on a car.
I'm just kind of numb, thinking about the day after the day after xmas, when I went to see Avatar in 3D with my bf. For some reason, that night -- I figured it was finding the new tumors in my cat the night before -- I started crying at the end of Avatar, despite the happy ending, and I couldn't stop for like 20 minutes. I cried in the car, just sobbing, and finally my bf was like, "Are you okay?" and I was like, "No, I'm not" and he's like, "What's wrong?" and I'm like "I don't know." I finally stopped crying and we stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat, and I was really hungry, and I was also PMSing, so I figured that was the reason for all the tears. But right in the middle of eating my food, I put down my fork and looked at my bf and he was like, "What?" and just said, "I have a really bad feeling." And he said, "About what?" and I said, "I don't know, I just suddenly had a really bad feeling that something really bad is going to happen." He says, "To you or me?" I said, "I don't know, I just know something bad is going to happen."
So I'm listening to the vet and her voice is starting to get farther and farther away, and I'm getting numb, thinking, this is the thing I got the bad feeling about -- I think -- or is it? is there something else still waiting, something worse? and also thinking, Again? I have to go through this cancer and chemo thing with another loved one, again? Haven't I been through it enough with my stepdad and mom? Is the fuckin' house cursed or diseased? Because they've all lived in it for years -- stepdad, mom, my cats and me -- and it's making me wonder if it's the house, or lead paint, or who knows what.
I finally ask the vet how much longer the cat has if I do nothing vs. if I do chemo vs. if I do chemo and surgery. She says, "She would start having respiratory symptoms and difficulty breathing in the next 2-3 months. She would probably have 3-6 months if you did nothing. With chemo she can have a good quality of life for 9-12 months longer." I'm thinking in my mind, good quality of life? this is palliative, not curative; I know that. I ask if it's really a good quality of life, is she going to be sick and miserable. The vet explains that since chemo in pets is milder than in humans, typically the worst that would happen with the agent she would use on my cat is her whiskers might fall out after 2-3 treatments.
At this point, Kako is pissed off, we've already been there for like 3.5 hours, and the vet says, "We can schedule you for chemo, I'd like to start it in the next week or two, the sooner the better -- have you got any time this week?" and I explain that my shift, 2:30pm-3am, kind of fucks with me, so later in the week isn't good. She says, maybe half-joking, that we could even do a chemo today. I say, Fine. Let's do it. She says, "Today?" I said, We're already here, she's already pissed off, she's already upset about coming to the vet... and if 'the sooner the better'...
The vet agrees and says we'll get her started and it'll save money, too, since I already had the blood work done today, and they can use that for the pre-chemo blood work. Whoopee. That saves me like $95. I don't really care about the cost; I have a lot of money in the bank (relatively speaking -- I mean, I could afford to buy another Toyota Echo, like the one I have, outright, in cash, or maybe even a bare bones, stripped down, no-options Scion, but I'm by no means wealthy).
I ask the vet, prefacing it by saying that I understand that she said that this type of metastatic basal cell carcinoma is very rare in cats, if they have any idea of etiology, given that we now know some cancers in humans seem to be a combination of genetics, environmental exposure, and viruses. She says with something this rare they just don't know because there isn't enough research on it, but asks about the living arrangement since I already told her my stepdad and mom also had cancer. I tell her we've all been living in the same 3 flat building. She suggests I get the building tested for radon and explains that when she moved here, she and her husband bought a house and the home inspector suggested they get it tested for radon, so they did... and found out that the radon levels were "through the roof" and required that they install a special filter on their forced air heat and central air.
I thank her for the suggestion and then I'm just... numb. They take Kako away again, and I go back out to the waiting room with my estimates, and sit down and think, So this is where I am again, in a waiting room at an oncology center, am I ever going to get away from this shit? wtf? I call my one older sister, at whose house last night I had dinner and visited with two of my nephews. I had told her about the tumors coming back and I was all alarmist and she was all, "It'll probably be okay, don't go to the cancer place immediately, you said yourself most of them are non-malignant and non-metastatic" (because I'd told her what I'd read online at PubMed and the Merck Veterinary Manual online). And she's silent for a long moment after I tell her that the cancer is in Kako's lungs and then she said she was so very sorry. I think she felt bad that she kept telling me not to be alarmist and then I turned out to be right.
She asked me did I want her to call other siblings and I said, No -- yes -- I don't know; okay, I guess so, because I myself don't want to talk to anyone. We hang up and I text my bf and he says he's sorry. He's sorry, she's sorry, I'm sorry, we're all sorry. Sorry doesn't do any good, though.
I'm too upset to read anymore, and I listen to the 9 receptionists (okay, that's an exaggeration; maybe only 6-7) paging Neurology and ICU and think, Wow, this is some animal hospital -- Neurology? ICU? I mean, I didn't even know there were Neurology units in animal hospitals. It's like "the Mayo Clinic for pets" one of the receptionists tells me. Turns out it's also a 24 hour a day animal hospital. Twenty four hours a day, just like a real hospital. I'm kind of amazed. It seems like, if your pet has to have cancer -- and I guess the stars are aligned in such away that mine does -- this is the hospital to come to. They have a veterinary radiation oncologist on staff twenty four hours a day. I mean, this is like the Northwestern University Medical Center for pets.
At any rate. The cat is extremely pissed off, I find out later -- so much so that they had to sedate her. Then after the chemo treatment they use a reversal agent. "Like Narcan?" I ask the oncology tech (because that's what we use on heroin and opiate ODs in the ER, like people who take too much Vicodin. "Something like that, but different, because we don't use the same opiates in pets," she tells me. So the cat is back to normal now -- which is, pissed off and stressed. She vomited, too, they told me, but it was before the chemo, when they were trying to start the IV, and was most likely from stress. (This makes me feel terrible for putting Kako through it all in one day, but the oncology tech tells me this is not uncommon. Sigh.)
So then they give her back to me and I pay like another $300 and then I ask the receptionists to watch her in her kitty carrier so I can go out and warm up my car because we're in the grip of this horrible cold snap here, it's like 5 degrees F outside, and Kako never goes outside so she's completely unused to this.
While I was typing all this up, my regular vet called me at 7:20AM when he got in to his office because he was reading the faxed info that the oncologist faxed to his office -- the diagnostics, the treatment plan, the lab work, etc. I have to bring her in for a CBC (complete blood count) in 7-10 days. He says we can probably do it next Monday, although he himself is supposed to go in for a hernia repair surgery on Wed. 1/14, so he'll try to have the lab fax the results directly to my veterinary oncologist, and mail a copy to me.
When we got home, Kako went straight to her food dish (I had had to keep her fasting from breakfast onward in case of surgical biopsy, sedation, etc.) Then she disappeared. She comes when I call but she doesn't want anything to do with me or the other cats. (She never wants anything to do with the dog but she tolerates him now as much as she usually does.) So now Kako hasn't wanted to be near me all night. She wasn't sleeping in her regular spot (either in my bed or on a radiator on top of a big, coffee table book), either. She looked like she'd been salivating so I gave her some of the anti-nausea medication she is supposed to get because that's one of the symptoms of nausea in cats.
Oh, yeah. I pinch-hit for the 2009 due South Seekrit Santa. My story was Neither Expose Nor Extinguish, NC-17, Fraser/Kowalski, Stella Bonasera (CSI:NY). Technically this is a xover but all you need to know about CSI:NY is that Melina Kanakaredes, who played Victoria on DS, plays Stella Bonasera on CSI:NY. It's really more like Stella does a cameo than a true xover.