Poop mystery solved.

Penny has always been a good communicator. "Pet me," "feed me," "let me in the closet." Whatever she wants, she finds a way to stubbornly let us know.

Awhile back, I discovered a piece of her poop in the middle of the kitchen floor and was convinced that my husband had somehow carelessly gotten it on his shoe and tracked it over there. When I accused him, he denied it and then accused me of doing it. Well, after some close scrutiny of his shoe and my sock, we determined that Penny did it all by herself. She never was very good at "making it" into her litter box, but it was highly uncharacteristic that something would end up so far away from the box. Turned out that she was trying to tell us to clean her litter box - very effective considering that the little present she left was in a location that could not have been missed.

There was a bit of mystery as to how she did it though. I mean, did she actually "go" in the middle of the floor, or move something over from her box? This week, the mystery was solved when David caught her in the act. She went to the bathroom as usual back at her box, and then dragged herself with her front paws, while in sitting position with her rear legs up! And what was left behind was, well, left behind. Mystery solved.

Current weight: 7.0 lbs.

Farewell, Tiny.

This past week I've been really thankful that Penny has been so stable. She's still a skinny little cat, but has been happy, energetic, and even seems to be better on the sneezes, lesions, and bothersome mouth pain from the tumor. No news is definitely good news for her.

On the other spectrum, the picture above is actually of cancer cousin Tiny, back when he was healthy. This is how I remember him. Tiny's intestinal lymphoma had made him very sick and weak in the 2 weeks since the family found out. He was in obvious pain and barely hanging on, so last Saturday, he was put to rest. Bye-bye, big guy. We'll miss you.

Eating in bed.

My husband asked a good question..."Is it still a 'surprise feeding' when she comes to expect it?"

Penny's been pretty stable this week. She eats 2-3 times a day in bed and supplements with visits to her bowl. The funny thing is that she will refuse to eat her canned food in the kitchen, but 5 minutes later will happily eat it all up if I give her the same bowl in bed. (Yes, she continues to be an unusual cat.) Her lesions seem to be healing and the sneezes have died down. At night her energy level is high, too.

As for cousin cat, Tiny, he's not doing quite so well. His weight has dropped another 2 pounds and the family is having him treated with steroids and other injections to keep him going a bit longer. I can't believe he's as small as Penny now. Just 2 weeks ago he was a big fat cat!

Penny's current weight: 6.8 lbs
Tiny's weight: 6.5 to 7.5 lbs, depending on the scale

How to Surprise Feed a Cat.

1) Start with a sleeping cat. Curled up and under the covers is good because she won't see it coming.
2) Water down some canned catfood and put into a little bowl.
3) Sneak up on the cat and shove the bowl right under her face. This step is especially easy when the kitty is deaf.

As cutie cat wakes up, she smells food and instantly starts to lick it up. No need to get up or even move her body. Is she lazy? Yes. Spoiled? Probably. Weak? Not anymore. This method has worked well for feeding Penny this past week.

Current weight: still 6.8 lbs, but with much more energy

Thinking of Tiny.

Today's post is less about Penny than it is for another cat named Tiny. Tiny is 12 years old and belongs to my sister-in-law's family. I guess that makes Penny and Tiny "cousins" in a way.

Tiny is also a tabby cat with white markings, however his normal weight is a hefty 12-13 lbs. Within the last week, he dropped 4 lbs. and suddenly lost strength to climb over anything, including the lip of his litter box. The vet discovered a mass and had Tiny sent over to the VMS, the same place that Penny went to see a cat oncologist. We were very sad to hear last night that Tiny was diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma. Without treatment, he only has a couple of weeks left. The family decided to give him one dose of chemotherapy plus steroids to hopefully prolong Tiny's life by another month or two. They'll know on Friday whether this was successful. In the meantime, Tiny is back home and still purring.

Two separate instances of cat cancer occurring at the same time in our extended family has truly been quite a shock. Our nephew Coby came up with a great idea when he said, "we should have lots of parties for Tiny and Penny so that they can be happy while they are alive." We'll be keeping Tiny in our thoughts.

In the meantime, Penny holds steady at 6.8 lbs. and she takes to supplemental feedings well using the "surprise method".

Big sneezes from a little cat.

Appetite has been mixed over the past few days. She's turning down some of her favorite foods again and not eating as much. When she does eat, it's very voracious, like she was starving and can't wait to get the food down fast enough. One of the things I've been doing is to bring a bowl of food over to her when she's napping. I stick the bowl right at her face, she wakes up, and starts eating without having to even move her body. It does seem to get her to eat when she won't go to her food bowl on her own.

Penny's also been sneezing a lot more now. She's really cute when she does it, but we know it's not a good thing. (Also not cute is when she does a big wet sneeze right at my face while I'm sleeping.) Based on past experience, if her sinus is clogged, she'll tend not to eat because she can't smell her food.

On other issues, her mouth is bothering her more (symptom: lip smacking). Lesions seem to be healing or decreasing, which makes us believe that they were caused by some sort of allergic reaction to the Piroxicam medication. Her hair is also thinning out.

Current weight: 6.8 lbs

Doing her thing.

Penny is more or less back to doing her thing: napping in various places throughout the house, following us around, and doing a very good imitiation of a paper weight on our laps. This picture was taken over the weekend - you can see the difference in size between her left and right cheek. She's back to eating hard foods and drinking water now, although not nearly at the quantities compared to just a month ago. For some reason, she doesn't like canned catfood anymore. She will eat a little of it I water it down to make it mushier.

Some recent anomalies we noticed include 1) small lesions all over her body and 2) a big-than-others vertebrae. I don't know when the lesions started because it's hard to notice under her fur. We noticed the first one last month when a scab came off (slightly smaller than the size of an eraser tip) and took off her hair with it. She has a little bald spot at her shoulder, which is growing back now. Could it be an allergic reaction to the Piroxicam? Or a rash somehow remotely related to the cancer? She does seem to be a bit itchier than normal so the marks could be caused by her biting at her skin.

As for the fat vertebrae in the middle of her back, David pointed it out to me last night. He thinks she may have had that for a long time and now it's just more noticeable with her weight loss and overall boniness.

Current weight: 7.0 lbs