Cancer

Sunday, July 23: Gonzo, charging the paparazzi.

Gonzo's getting worse, I think.

His belly feels so distended, like any pressure I put on it when I hold him just squashes his insides. There are lumps in there, too. I'm unclear as to whether the lumps are organs, or the cancer, or organs swollen from the cancer.

I don't know how it works and it wouldn't make a difference even if I did.

It's been three weeks now since we found out about the lymphoma in his kidney. The days tick off the calendar and I know we're getting closer to the moment when we have to do something and make a decision we can't take back. There are no options, nothing we can do but wait.

He's growing little lumps elsewhere on his body, too. Phil says they're tumors. We've found one on the underside of his right eyelid, and another in his ear. The cancer will spread to his lymph nodes (which Phil says it probably already has, as they are slightly swollen) and eventually just be too much for him to contend with.

He'll eat and sleep more, the doctors say, because the cancer will take all his energy. And then at some point he might lose his appetite.

He has eaten voraciously for a while. It began several months ago. He doesn't play at all anymore. The last time I saw him hop around was probably last month, and it was an abbreviated set of hops, over with before I even realized what he was doing. Felix, of course, is still a little ball of energy, and it breaks my heart to see him itching to play and Gonzo just lying there staring into space, unresponsive.

So I play with Felix. He hides behind the pillows on the couch and I surprise him with my hands, pinching his haunches and rubbing behind his ears. He'll hop down to the floor and dart into the plastic tube, flicking his tail in anticipation. I'll shove a plastic bag in there, and he'll grab it with his teeth and start pulling it in the other direction. He'll free the bag from its tubular confines and hop over to Gonzo, who's usually lying on the hallway rug — looking at us — and sort of lie on him and gingerly bite the nape of his neck. And Gonzo will move his head and look the other way. And if I sit beside him and pet him, he might lie there for a little bit, but he'll grow tired of the intrusion and slink off to a darker place. Under the bed, usually. Or inside some sweatpants on the floor.

And Felix, I guess, doesn't know why. So we keep playing.