For some reason, Gwen has taken up residence in the bathroom. I apologize for the hair. We change out the bath mats and wash them regularly, but she’s a very sheddy kitty.

It’s no secret that Gwen has about thirty things wrong with her. She’s put up with a lot for such a tiny girl. In November we learned that she also has cancer. Turns out that this mass on her chest that I thought was something else was a cancerous tumor.

We spent a healthy amount of time debating what to do with her. Because she keeps itching her tumor open, leading to infection, not to mention the fact that it has to be uncomfortable if she keeps picking at it, our options were to let her rest sooner than later, or try and help her fight and get the tumor removed. It wasn’t a straightforward decision, and I appreciate that we had our vet’s input on it, as well as running bloodwork on her to get the best idea possible of how she’s doing overall.

The thing is, overall, she seems to be a happy, content little girl. She perks up when someone goes into the bathroom, enjoys the sweet spot of human attention and being left alone by the cats. She still eats up a small storm, and seems to have the kitty equivalent of sitting on a beach sipping her margaritas. (I still find the bathroom thing questionable, but she gets fresh bathmats and pajama pants to snuggle up on, so she’s happy)

While I’m sure there’s an element of wishful thinking involved, I tried to decide what Gwen would do, if she had the information in front of her. I honestly think she’d go for the surgery. It may not buy her a lot of extra time, which is the unfortunate part of this gamble. But hopefully it buys her some time where the tumor is gone and she isn’t picking at it. If any of our cats was going to keep on living with cancer out of spite – it’s Gwen. I think she deserves that chance. If and when she shows us that she’s tired of this, we will help her through.

That said, even the best case scenario isn’t a particularly shiny one for Gwen. The vet seemed to indicate that the best we might expect is a year before the tumor comes back. Plus, she has all of her other health issues to contend with – her thyroid is currently running wild, so we need to get that back under control as well. I will be honest – I will be shocked if she makes it to 2023. But that’s okay. My little goal is to get her to her “Gwen’s day” (adoption day) in February. She’ll have been with us for seven whole years at that point, and I think that’s a very good chunk of time. If I can say that we gave her seven good, happy, snuggly, loved beyond measure years – that’s nothing to dismiss.

But again, if any cat is going to defy the odds, it’s Gwen. We’re just going along for the ride. Step one is getting her through her surgery tomorrow. Fingers crossed, little sass.