Chemo kitty.

16 July 2001—No, that’s not a healthy glow he’s giving off. It would be kind of fun if Banzai, my 16-year-old cat, got exposed to radiation and became some sort of superhero, like Peter Parker (which is only near the front of my mind because I just saw the teaser for the new Spiderman movie, which isn’t even due for another freakin’ year), but actually, this isn’t even radiation.

Besides, Banzai is already named after a superhero — ironic, given his neurological problems, that the superhero whose name he bears is/was, among other marvelous things, a brain surgeon. So one might be led to think that Banzai should be able to treat himself, much like the doctor at the South Pole who treated her own breast cancer, but even she had to finally be airlifted out of there.

The essential facts: Banzai is 16, which is a ripe old age for a cat, roughly equivalent to late 80s in human terms; two years ago he had surgery that removed most of his thyroid; a year ago he was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (aka chronic renal failure — I imagine there are bands of veterinarians squaring off against each other at conventions, battling for who will win the War of the Acronyms). CKD (or CRF, depending on your loyalties) is an untreatable disease that will probably eventually kill him, if the latest problem, lymphosarcoma, doesn’t get him first. The cancer manifested itself in these symptoms: his right eye became constantly and completely dilated; he lost his balance and movement capabilities; and he lost control of his bodily functions.

At first we didn’t even think it was cancer: the dilated eye and loss of balance suggested to our medically-untrained selves (as well as to our local vet) that his problem was neurological in nature, perhaps a stroke or a brain tumor. So we went to have him checked by the only neurologist nearby, and by “nearby” I mean an hour’s drive from here. The neurologist, however, surprised us with the news that the symptoms weren’t really that related, so a stroke was pretty unlikely. More likely was a cancer that was also affecting the kidneys, which were enlarged, surprising since they should have been smaller than normal given the CKD/CRF. They did a test, and, indeed, cancer was what it turned out to be.

It’s interesting, the different reactions people have had to our predicament. One camp has suggested it’s time to let him go. Others (a smaller camp, to be sure) are of the notion that our pets deserve the same attention that any human in our care would receive. I myself am midway between the two camps, under an unsturdy tarp. I had grand vacation plans this year: a couple of weeks in Spain. I hated to admit that cost was an issue in my care for Banzai, given the practical considerations. It had already been expensive. Specialized treatment would only be more so.

There was a 60-70 percent chance he could recover and live for at least another year. He was still in decent spirits, though suffering through indignities of being blind in one eye, hardly able to walk, and pissing (and worse) where he slept.

But what deep tie did I have to this creature? He had always been something of an ornery bastard and quite the Lothario, vastly preferring the company of women over men, and demanding, quite crankily, whatever someone happened to be eating, regardless of whether he actually wanted it if he achieved his goal.

Plus, he hadn’t really ever been my cat: he imprinted on my mom (see earlier reference to his being a Lothario), and he stayed in Los Angeles when I came up here for college. It was only when my folks sold their house and went out on the road that I took him in, because my mom had had a horrible dream in which she had killed him, a manifestation of her guilt about the idea of giving him to someone else rather than taking him on the road. That was seven years ago. He came to live with me and, naturally, imprinted on whichever female friend came by. When my housemate Erika moved in, Banzai found the love of his life. Cheshire who?

And yet, when the time came to make a decision about what to pursue, treatment or euthanasia, something happened in me.

I sort of became a dad.

My cousin, a recent new dad (eight months), came to breakfast last weekend. I asked him what parenthood had changed in him, and he said the most significant change was that he had become less selfish. He hadn’t really been selfish to begin with, but long-held needs of personal time gave way to the needs of this helpless person, and my cousin stepped up to the challenge.

So did I. I don’t need to go to Spain this year. Banzai has a chance to have a relatively good life for at least a while. So I chose chemotherapy, and we’ve been living through it. And there’s good news: his eye will probably remain dilated and blind, but cats adjust quickly to one-eye blindness. His balance has returned to a fairly good degree, and fortunately I no longer have to lay kitty diapers (puppy house-training pads, to be precise) around his sleep areas and clean him up at night, which I did the first weekend and was happy to do so. He gets pills every morning, and now I’ll be giving him subcutaneous injections of fluids at night, and that’s pretty much how it will go for a while, if not indefinitely. Strange what you’re capable of when the time comes.

And so Banzai and I became closer for a couple of weeks than we ever had been. Now that he’s feeling a lot better, he’s gone back to his rakish ways, but I’m happy I took this path. Sadly, he still hasn’t turned into a superhero, though my housemate Kathy thinks we should make a comic book about him called Chemo Kitty.

Well, maybe we will.