Dog walking in fall – Maja Lindberr (change that to cat walking round my house ….)
Dear friends, readers, correspondents.
That time of year has come round again. Early October where often we do have beautiful fall weather and yesterday and today it’s been sunny and cool, leaves just starting to turn colors. It was once my favorite time of year. Now each year I remember October 3rd is/was Jim’s birthday: he would have been 75. October 6th is/was our anniversary; we met 10/6/1968 and married a year to the day after that. He died October 9, 2013. Here are Jim and Izzy at Niagara Falls, me taking the picture, the year Izzy graduated from Buffalo with her MLIS; here a nice-close up of Jim and Izzy taken one New Year’s Ever before going out to the Kennedy Center — probably 2009? 11 years later, bereft still …
Just below: the year 2008, when Izzy graduated from Buffalo, Jim and I visited her and we spent the weekend exploring the island of Niagara Falls
One Christmas Eve, I’m not sure which, possibly while Izzy was still at Sweet Briar, we prepared to go to the Kennedy Center for an evening out of concert, cafe, play and ball …
I have found no social life which begins to replace him …. OTOH, I have entered into different groups of people and learned a lot about the world right now today, what the average intelligent older person is thinking or doing, plus I have had to fend for myself and learned to be somewhat independent — as long as my income (pension, social security) remains. I admit I like this: I like feeling less vulnerable, less powerless. I know feeling is not quite reality though.
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Another October day, and the marigolds which have bloomed all summer long are still with me in this small garden of mine …. Very hardy, marigolds …
This is how I felt shortly after he had died — October 2013
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I am now embarked on my fall — I’m teaching in two OLLIs, taking some excellent courses at both places and joining others at Cambridge online, virtual conferences (Virginia Woolf), festivals (mostly the UK). Working on my reviews on 18th century books and Unfinished Austen; soon I will be going out to the few operas, concerts, plays, one ballet I paid for. With a friend or one group or Izzy. I am still suffering from the aftermath of that virus: I sleep in the afternoon and go slower than I did. I can’t join in on as many actual readings as I used to. Covid and other new viruses are an on-going danger. Still I will be doing two more talks for the Every-Other-Week group hosted by the London Trollope Society online.
Here I am at the Oxford conference giving my talk Intriguing Women and Their Friendships in Trollope:
And Izzy and I at that elegant dinner: look to the far right last row:
Alas, at the end of this time of remembrance, on October 9th, yesterday I took Clarycat to the Vet. Read in the comments what happened.
When she first grew ill — April 17th this past year, 2023; Jim was diagnosed with cancer on April 28th; the way she holds her head on the side is a sign of brain tumor
Here she is one summer mornning, 2023
Ellen
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
So today I took my beloved Clarycat to the Vet. She weighs 5 pounds, 9 ounces, when her usual weight was once 10-11 pounds. Something very wrong. Again I was confronted with a choice of super-expensive heroic modern medicine, which if she survived that (the anesthesia), it was not clear we could do anything about without a heroic operation, and the vet ruled that out for two types of problems. She did say 8 months ago, maybe we could have done something, but I recall she was not urgent then, and I recall even more how Jim suffered from the operation he had and my view now we should have just gone to the UK or Europe for one more holiday together. The vet predicted she will not be with us by summer. In the meantime — since April and she began to recover — she has lived a tranquil cat life, eating, drinking, sleeping, looking out windows, cuddling, occasionally (very occasionally) playing with a toy. Below she is sitting by the heater, hidden away because she did not enjoy her trip to the Vet (much blood work as they call it; they got her to urinate and so on).
I admit I became very irrational and demanded they bring her out after half an hour — I suddenly feared she had died. I was the same when Jim had his 11 hour operation. I became convinced he was dead and the doctor Himself had to come out to assure me this was not so. I just couldn’t bare to be parted from my cat either. I wanted the assurance of seeing she was not being hurt ….
10/11/2023: The vet phoned me. Clary has elevated calcium in her blood. That could mean lymphoma but apparently that’s not sure; she does not have hyperthyroidism; all vital signs are normal. So tomorrow I’ll pick up 30 steroid pills and start to try to put one a day into her food and see if that will help her regain some weight
Dear Ellen
I read your latest post about your beloved cat and am sorry for what you are going through. I won’t pretend to know what you are feeling at this moment just because I once had a pet and was where you are now. I know that every relationship between an owner-pet is unique and every person deals with these circumstances in their own way. Let me just say that in every single word you have spent for your darling I’ve perceived the love you feel for her. Though Clary can’t read your posts, I am certain she can perceive your affection in any of the gestures you address her.
I know how difficult it is to be rational in these circumstances but, as you said, Clary is eating, drinking and playing, which is a good sign. The quality of the time she spends with her owner is more important than the amount of it, sometimes. And I’ve no doubt that should Clary be with you until summer, she would prefer to spend this year cuddling with her human rather than in an operating room.
There’s not a right or wrong decision in these cases. What I suggest is trusting your Vet and, most of all, trust yourself. You raised your kitty and know what is better for her.
I’ll send you a separate letter (email) later on with some lines about my recent readings.
Meanwhile, I send you and your kitty a big hug from this side of the Ocean, where it’s still hot and, apparently, Summer isn’t going to leave us soon.
Best wishes,
Sara
10/18, later morning.
So, the Mobile Clinic Vet, Dr Horn by name, came to visit today. I liked her; she explained more and I will now call and have Clary treated by her. She had carefully read Clary’s records: it seems Clary may have a brain tumor; it has metastasized into her “gut” and that’s why she has had the weight loss. I’m leaving out a lot and just say we are going to give her steroids to help keep her weight up, and an appetite stimulant. Dr Horn advised the litter ox does not need the cover so now it will be easier for Clary to use it. Otherwise she has what she has left to live tranquilly: she purrs and drinks and eats, and uses her litter box as yet; and comes to me (or Izzy) to be held; climbs on my desk and chairs. She is stumbling, falling back more. Her hair is clotted because she is not grooming herself as much. She won’t be with us by later spring or summer .
10/25/2023 I just wrote a posting for Facebook about how the black guys who worked on my garden last spring and did it so well that the garden was well all summer as long as I watered it. I was so glad to see them. Antwon, the leader’s name, said he had left a card; I must’ve lost it. Now I’ve stapled it to my address book. They did a full half day’s work and the garden is ready for the winter, plus now another side of my yard where neighbors have put up fences and then allowed their trees and plants to lean over into my yard or grow in it is now cleared. So I have more sun. They will return in early March
It did trigger a panic attack I had a panic attack over money, suddenly I couldn’t understand and was misreading figures and it took half an hour before I calmed down enough to
realize what I was doing. Another govt shut down looms — probably it was the check I had to give Antwon that triggered it — but he charged what others do (slightly less), and does a very good job. I don’t want my garden to become a mess again. I don’t know what I am doing plus now neither side has strength to do anything hard like digging. My back hurt yesterday after all the clean up yesterday after the comcast expert came and changed the modem, updated tons of things and I threw stuff out (Jim’s computers, wires), dusted bookcases after pulling them apart and putting them back, putting other stuff up in the attic, throwing out two very sad looking chairs (which were however, grabbed by my super-rich neighbors within the hour – on their way to prevent changes in zoning).
I do think I would do well when I’m overburdened (with reading or writing) not to teach every term but I can’t face a term with nothing to do out of the house and other people. It would be bad for me. I can see how other friends (at a distance) do fill their time with social activities not tied to any institution but I’ve never been able to do that. Now there are these in person autistic meetings and I can’t get myself to go in the first place. I managed the OLLIs because it was school and I knew I could more or less cope. I more or less cope with (survive) the zooms because they are so structured.
I’ve joined Anne Boyd Rioux’s newsletter as a paid subscriber at long last. More about this eventually. She had gone to Cornwall and for a day joined a reading group on Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.