Got my very first fuck off and die comment (literally, that’s what they said) from a total stranger the other week on Bluesky, because I said hey, check your titers on measles/mumps/rubella if you’re of a certain age and get a booster if you need one, while we can still get vaccines. (I turned out to be immune to rubella, but not the other two, so I very quickly rectified that situation. My spouse, who’s older than me, was Very Immune To Everything and did not require a booster.) I was a little surprised. What, rando person with, like, four followers, you’re just searching the word vaccine and going in to post nastygrams? Or it was maybe a bot?

Whatever, blocked and muted and all that. But it lingered, that feeling of…bemusement, I guess. It wasn’t a threat, it was an ill-formed ill-wish, but the confrontational nature of the venom surprised me. I know, I know, I have been on the internet since it was all AOL and BBSs and you had to access a DOS shell, and along with porn (and cats), assholes have always been part of the landscape. But who wants measles? My dad has had measles and mumps, because that’s what happened before vaccines, especially when there are four siblings, and he’s fine, but come on. I read Little House on the Prairie. Shit can go very wrong. It’s like not wearing a helmet and bombing racing motorcycles. Sure, you could be fine! Or you could be paste on the road.

Block, mute, move on. But also, wonder: why, with all the shit going on in the world, do you choose to spend your energy being nasty to a total stranger who made a decision that does not affect you? There’s enough stress and anxiety to go around, you don’t need to add to it.

I could (and do) gesture at everything right now as a fuel for the anxiety-fires, the thing that’s hitting me hardest lives in the same house. Last post, we thought we’d solved Murdercat’s eating problems with a dental cleaning. Except, no. His teeth are perfect. And when he still wasn’t eating after the cleaning–when in fact he was getting worse–we ended up back at the vet. An ultrasound discovered small-cell lymphoma in his GI tract.

I’m skipping over a lot of the hard part here–the conversations we had with each other, with our vet, reading the research and Reddit, the realization that this cat who was just fine in January is now very much not, and we thought we had many years and now we have…well. A lot less. And the worst part: what we were going to do about it. You bring them home and you promise to give them their best lives, you know? And best might not be longest and with the most medical interventions, and not only because of money (though I’d be lying if I said that was not a consideration, too). This is a cat we have to wrestle into a carrier. Any treatment that involved lots of car rides was a no-go, and just because he will tolerate strangers handling him–no sedation for his shave/ultrasound!–it’s not because he’s chill, it’s because he’s terrified and too gentle to fight. You could do a lot to that cat and imagine he was okay with it. You could tell yourself that–he’s fine! see? no hissing!–and justify any number of things. And maybe we would, if this was something temporary or curable, but it’s not.

Our amazing, kind vet understood all of that. She got him on a pill-form chemo we can mail order and prednisolone caplets, and he’ll take them both easily in pill pockets, like he’s getting something cool no one else does.

Since the medication, his attitude and appetite have improved. He’s stopped climbing on people to be held, which is his tell for feeling sick. He wants his walks so he can hunt bugs and lizards and whatever little rodents are living in the hedges. (He is appallingly successful, even leashed, at catching and eating small things before humans can intervene.) He begs for Churus and snacks. He plays and snuggles with, and hisses at, the Patchwork Terror like everything’s back to normal.

However, and this is the part that’s hard: it’s not normal. Murdercat is not going to recover. There is no future day we stop medications and he’s cured. I keep reminding myself of this. There’s no “he is not eating enough, we must stop the weight loss!” There is “he ate something!” (We will not discuss my new obsession with his poop and its consistency.) The chemo makes his fur thinner, and the shave from his ultrasound still hasn’t grown back. But the prednisolone keeps him cheerful, and eager for meal time, even if we aren’t sure what he will eat. (This month, it’s cheap Fancy Feast pâté and expensive Tiki Cat kibble. Last month he wanted only chunky foods. Fresh-caught lizard, of course, is always welcome, bones and scales and all.) He will make it to 10, I think–September–but I would be surprised if he’s still here next summer. In the meantime, it’s gonna be the best year we can manage.