Frankenstein Smokey is back and badder than ever!

As you can see from the three pictures below, our wonderful cat Smokey is back from the neurology clinic, and although he looks like a certain monster cobbled together by Victor Frankenstein (I actually thought of the Patchwork Man from that Alan Moore Swamp Thing issue years ago, if you're familiar with it), he's still our boy, and we're very happy to have him back. The tumor is out, and there's no reason to think he won't live a nice long life. The vet said that there's a vein running between the hemispheres of his brain, and some tumorous cells are running along the vein, so he couldn't remove them. What that means is it's possible the damned thing could grow back, but it would take a long time and he said Smokey might be dead by then. Our other option is radiation treatment, which would kill the cells. We're going to get him checked out periodically, and if it starts regrowing, then we'll do the radiation. Until then, he's fine.

He still has health issues, but the major stuff is over. He's moving around fine, and the vet said he might regain most of his sight, since the tumor was probably pressing down on his optic nerve. It seems to us that he's recovered his sight pretty well already. He's eating fine, and we're hoping he can find the litter box tonight - that would be nice. Our other cat, Zoe, who is part calico and therefore quite bitchy sometimes, is very suspicious of him. She has a love/hate relationship with him anyway, but now - he smells different, he looks weird - she's not sure what to make of him. She'll get over it.

We spent a lot of money on getting him help, and it bothered me that most of the people I talked to said it wasn't worth it. My mother said it, a co-worker said it, and most of my students said so (I'm back at my old school, subbing for the rest of the year - fun stuff!). They all said we should just put him to sleep and the students said we should get a new cat. Now, it was a crapload of money - I'm not denying that, nor that it would have been nicer not to spend the money. But I don't get people who feel that way about their pets (if they have them). We're discussing racism in one class, and I tried to explain the idea of racism to these kids - it's based on seeing someone as less than human. I said that people who are racist would have no thought about killing someone of a different skin color because they don't consider them human beings, and although the analogy isn't perfect, it's somewhat the same thing with a cat. I hate to get my philosophy from comic books, but it's like Grant Morrison said at the end of Animal Man - why do humans have any more intrinsic right to life than a cat? One girl in class said because humans can work and earn money. Hmmm. So what? It would be hard to decide exactly how much you would want to spend on getting a cat better, but we didn't have to make that decision. We watched him for a few days, looked at how he was doing, saw that after the initial shock he had regained his zest for life (he's weaker, obviously, so he's not jumping around like he used to, but he's still walking around, desperate for love like he always has been), and so we decided that it would be mean to put him to sleep simply because it cost some money to save him. Anyway - he's back, and we're very happy that he's better. Let's all celebrate!

By the way, I wasn't fishing for comments yesterday, although I'm happy you guys let me know what you thought. I read a lot of blogs, and I don't always leave comments everywhere to let the fine bloggers out there know that I have visited their fine sites. So that wasn't it - I was just jazzed about my GuestMap! Sorry, Woody, it didn't work - try again! I know you're in the Cincinnati area (at least I hope you are, since you're such a big Cincinnati fan!), but try again anyway! (I always liked Cincinnati - it's where I had my first, and last, White Castle's hamburger - man, they suck!) So check out my GuestMap - it's cool! And thanks for reading - I'm choking up with emotion, really!