Fuzza and I just got back from the vet’s office and a morning of tests, and now we know what’s wrong.

Cancer … lymphoma to be exact … and liver failure … and extreme anemia. The prognosis? There is no prognosis that isn’t grim. We could put him in the hospital and try to treat him, but the vet seemed to think that a) he likely wouldn’t survive the treatments, b) it wouldn’t extend his life by much even if he did, and c) it’s better to just let him go gracefully.

So we had the talk about what to do next. She gave him a cortisone shot so I could bring him home tonight, and he’d feel a little better … so we could spend one last night with him. Whether or not Lin wants to face this and talk about it or not, he’s going to have to. We don’t have much time to make a decision … the vet said we really need to decide tonight (she really wanted me to leave him with her right away, but I couldn’t do that), and I’d rather Fuzza go quietly at the vet’s office than horribly here at home.

So there, now we know what’s wrong and what comes next, and it just breaks my heart completely.

I might be incommunicado for a while, or not. Hard to say. Right now all I want to do is hold my cat and cry.

I am entirely too tired to jump through the hoops required to make a filtered post appear on my blog and my web site at the same time, so this is another depressing post about my cat’s health I’m going to leave public (for now).

Behind the cut in case you don’t want to get depressed and can’t deal with me when I am. I’m just getting some thoughts out of my mind so I can get some sleep. There’s a high probability that today is going to suck far worse than most days that suck.
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I only have a few things to report tonight:

I went ahead and paid for 6 more months at Livejournal. I use it a lot for private personal posts, and I think I’d miss it.

Fuzza isn’t doing any better, in fact, he seems to be doing worse.

I am physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted.

Yup, that’s about it for tonight.

Lin got back from the Vallejo concert about an hour ago. He seems to have had the perfect fanboy experience. He came bouncing through the door wearing a black Vallejo baseball cap “just like Omar’s” waving the Vallejo DVD in my face and showing off his combination rechargeable lighter and bottle opener … with the Vallejo logo on it, of course.

He is now watching the Vallejo DVD, filmed I-don’t-know-when at Antones (yes, the Antone that died recently). Lin was in the audience that night, so he’s on the lookout to see himself of the DVD. I have to keep reminding him that it’s very late at night and perhaps Tex-Mex music eminating from our living room at high volumes might not be a good idea.

My head is throbbing. One of the reasons I didn’t want to go tonight was that it was going to be loud. Now I am getting to experience an entire Vallejo performance at top volume anyway. Oh, the joy. Not that it isn’t a great DVD, but I’m certain I will enjoy it more some other time when I’m not tired, stressed out, and have a headache.

UPDATE: 4:14 am
OK, I watched some of the Vallejo DVD, and I am glad we have it. I really will enjoy it more when I’m not in such a poor state of mind and body. It rocks!

Aaah … sweet bliss … my desktop is once again clear of junk and short cuts. With that said, I present Links of Note a respository of all those links that are interesting enough to put on my desktop daily, but not interesting enough to talk about.

It is a dream of mine to one day have my entire existence so perfectly in order that I can decide I want to contact someone and instantly have a list showing all the possible ways to contact them which exist on this planet right there in front of me. I have long dreamed of this. I know that it is possible. Other people have done it. Unfortunately, in order to fulfill this dream, I would have to be organized and efficient. I am, alas, neither.

The iMac is helping greatly. Instead of allowing my attention deficit brain create strange and unfathomable organizational systems, I am letting the iMac put things where it wants to put things. Hey, lookie … there’s a folder that says “Music,” I think I’ll put my music in there! I’m certain many of you are amazed that this is a new concept for me. Well, apparently, when my mind is allowed to come up with it’s own organizational scheme, it goes entirely date-based. Photos, ripped CD’s, videos, bookmarks, files of all manner, and every last one of them organized by date. In most cases, right down to a date-based file name. Often, folders contain files of many varieties … all created or acquired on that day. Date-based folders filled with date-based files … all going back some four years or more. In my world, that worked rather well, and I was always able to find things quickly and easily. Sure, a lot of those folders never got opened again, but I always knew I had whatever I had found interesting that day or worked on that day in that folder, and should I ever need it, there it would be. In the real world, no sane human being would be able to find anything on my computer, and they have all been storing their files in folders called Music and Pictures and Movies and Documents. And they use a thing called an Address Book to keep all their contact information in. What a brave new world!

I have vowed to never create a single folder with a date-based name on the iMac. Not for any reason … never.

But tonight I noticed that my desktop was messy, and there was a folder on my desktop with the name of Junk. This is how it begins. First it’s a folder named Junk, and then when there isn’t a single empty spot for an icon of some sort on my desktop, I get tired of seeing the jumble, I throw away the stuff that is obviously not needed anymore, and all the rest gets put in the Junk folder … and then … the folder name is changed … to a date. Naturally, I don’t want this folder sitting on my desktop, so I then find a spot somewhere on the hard drive and create a folder with 2006 as it’s file name. When a month has passed, and there are many folders in the 2006 folder, the first folders with monthly names will appear. No, no, no … I’m not a) a pack-rat, b) obsessive compulsive and c) a hoarder.

The first step is to become organized with my bookmarks. At this very moment, there are some 20 or so website short cuts sitting on my desktop. At the moment I was looking at them, I thought something about the page was interesting or informative or just worth looking at again for whatever reason. Usually it’s something that makes me want to make a blog post, and because I babble so much on my web site and would then also be posting some 20 links a day or so, it would make the front page of my web site a mile long just for a day’s posts. The second step, or maybe more like a sub-step of the first step, is to start another blog just for the posting of links. I used to have one. I should have never stopped. At least with a blog, I have the feeling of having saved the link somewhere, and I might actually be able to find it again if I want to. Tucked somewhere in a date-based filing system, the chances of me ever finding it again are about zero.

Eventually, I hope to force my brain to learn the concept of this thing called an Address Book, and then perhaps I will be able to realize my dream of knowing how to contact anyone I know in any way whenever I want to. Aaah. Wouldn’t it be lovely?

Of course, you know this means that in another week or two, I will be bugging everyone to give me all their contact information again. You people must know I am a flake about this by now, don’t you? Those of you who have known me for years probably can’t even remember how many times I have asked you for your contact information. I promise … THIS TIME … I am going to be organized about it. No really, I will. My iMac is going to change my life and cure all my mental health issues.

Now to go see what sort of Firefox extensions I can find to make it easier for me to keep my bookmarks in order … and set up a new blog of some sort.

Why the hell does my site sometimes not let me make a post and give me a 404 error when I hit the post button?! Really starting to annoy me, because not only does it not post, it also loses whatever post I was trying to make.

So now, the short version, which I hope makes it through:

Found something the cat will eat. He isn’t supposed to eat it due to his IBS, but I figure at this point, eating anything is better than eating nothing. He seems just a little perkier tonight.

I, on the other hand, am an emotional and physical wreck, and though I would really like to go see Vallejo play tonight, I’m staying home to get some more sleep. I don’t think I have slept more than a few hours a day for the last few days. Eventually, you just have to shut down.

My mother has annoyed me beyond belief today. I’m not going into it at the moment.

It rained today. Lin wasn’t happy about it, because he has so many construction projects that have to be finished in the next few days, but I was glad it rained. It felt good and now the air feels and smells clean and fresh again. Aaaah … fewer nasty allergins in the air!

Hopefully this will post. If it doesn’t, oh well … not trying again.

Another crappy day done. Wish I could sleep, but I can’t seem to do so. I’m going to go lay on the couch in a minute and hopefully find something boring enough on TV to knock me out.

Still sad and depressed. Don’t want to talk about it. Like I said … another crappy day done. Hope tomorrow is better.

Slept like crap last night, which means I barely slept at all. I kept hitting the snooze button on the alarm this morning, and finally I just admitted to myself that I was not going to get out of bed to make Lin’s coffee, so I turned it off. Still didn’t get much sleep, and so I’m actually going to head back to bed for a while. Actually, I’m going to sleep on the couch. The cat can’t get up on the bed, and if he wants to nap with me, I want him to be able to do that.

Fuzza is still stumbling around and moving slowly, but he’s a little perkier today. I’ve discovered that if I pick him up and set him in front of his food bowl, he’ll eat a few bites of food every time if I stand there and watch. I just keep thinking if I could get him to eat more, he’d get better. I am probably fooling myself, but at least he’s eating a little more. That can’t be a bad thing no matter what. I’m going to wait until Monday to call the vet, and I am going to spoil him all weekend. Hopefully by Monday I’ll be in a better mental place about all this and can have a coherent conversation with the vet without breaking down into sobbing tears. Not that I think the vet would mind me crying, I’m sure she sees that from time to time and she’s such a great person too, but it makes it hard to communicate when you are crying … and she and I really need to have a long talk about what to do. I don’t know what to do, and so I am just going to turn to her for guidance.

I should do the dishes, take out the trash and vacuum, but screw it all. I’m depressed, and I feel like wallowing in it today. I have a social event to go to tomorrow night, so I better get all my wallowing done today. I really don’t want to go out tomorrow, but I already said I would, and I hate to be a flake and cancel things at last minute. Now all I have to do is find some clothes that don’t look two sizes two big for me and figure out how to pretend to be having a good time even when my mind is on far weightier things than a Vallejo show. Bah humbug.

At least it’s Friday, and I get to order delivery pizza for dinner tonight. I’m already looking forward to it. But first … more sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open.

I was going to make this a filtered post, but there’s really no reason to do so. Many of you are my dear friends, and maybe some of you who aren’t can relate to what I am feeling. At the very least, I thought it would explain why I have been a little weird lately, and why I may be even more weird over the coming days and weeks.

Warning: The post ahead is very sad, and I am very depressed. It’s about my cat.
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