Six Months Since Merlin's Cancer Diagnosis

Hello all!  Merlin here!  Today marks another very important milestone in my fight against cancer.  It's now been six months since my cancer diagnosis, and I have outlived my prognosis by three whole months!  I've basically lived for double what they expected me to live!  I am so happy that I am getting to spend a lot of quality time with my dad (and my mom too, but my dad was gone for a while, so it's so good to have time with him).

I'm still doing really well, other than in the litter box.  My stool is soft, and there is occasionally blood or mucus in it.  I also tend to run like a wild cat through the house after I get out of the litterbox, so my mom suspects that it hurts to use the litterbox.  So that's not very good.  I also occasionally make a meow that sounds different from my ordinary meowing (being a pointed Sphynx - a blue lynx point and white to be precise - I like to talk a lot, just like Meezers do).  My mom isn't sure if this strange meow means anything, as it's hard to tell, because I do like to talk!  But my behaviour seems perfectly normal, so my dad doesn't think it means anything much at this point.

I still wrestle with Devi, and every now and then I have to give her a good smack, to let her know who is in charge.

I continue to gain weight, because the steroid chemotherapy I'm on increases my appetite, so I'm hungry all the time and eating lots.  But that's okay!  At this point we would much rather have me gaining weight than losing it!

At this point we are enjoying every day and treasuring all the time we have together.  In just about another month, I'll turn 9 on September 1st!  Back in February when I was diagnosed with large cell lymphoma, we didn't think I'd even come close to making it to 9, and now I'm almost there!  As our primary care vet said, though, with cats, the course of lymphoma is always hard to predict (she said it's much easier to predict timelines in dogs).  She said some cats last less than a month, and some up to a year.   I've made it six months so far, and I'm still looking good!   Who knows, I may even get to see our new home when we move in October!  But we are just taking it day by day.  We know that at any time my spleen could suddenly give out on me (as the cancer had spread to my spleen when they did the biopsy) and that would be the end.  We are trying not to think about it though, and just cherishing the time we have, and taking lots of photos and video.  My mom says she thinks she'll need to get a new external hard drive to store all the photos she's taking of me!

Thank you all for your purrs, prayers, and positive thoughts.  We appreciate each and every one of our friends who are thinking of me, sending me their prayers, their purrs, and their positive thoughts.  Thank you.  And with our thanks we are joining the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop.