Choosing a Cancer Cat, One of the Joys

When I began this blog, I promised to be both optimistic and informative. So far, the focus has been informative. It’s time for one of the joys.

 

Because my husband travels, my daughter is almost two hundred miles away, and I know no one in Dallas, Wayne suggested a pet. I wanted a dog, but we like to travel, so we agreed on a cat. After all, they’re independent, not needy animals like a dog, and you can leave a cat for a few days and it will take care of itself, right?

 

Wayne and I headed for the Carrollton, Texas, Operation Kindness, to find a rescue kitty. The volunteer led me to several stacked cages. The first cat in the top left cage made eye contact and I was hooked. Being afraid of an impulsive choice, I scanned the other cats, but none clicked like the tuxedo kitty in the first cage. The volunteer offered to show me the “cat room” where they had many more adoptables. But I declined. I had found my companion, “Spaceman Spiff,” a combination Persian and American short hair gray and white tuxedo with huge goldish green eyes (in the pic) and the steadiest temperament of any animal I’ve ever met.

 

After bailing “Spaceman” out, we headed for the house, pondering his new name during the drive. He was soooo cool and relaxed that he reminded of Paul Newman’s character in “Cool Hand Luke.” And since we are Newmans anyway, it was a short leap to Luke Newman, aka Lukester, aka Chunkster.

 

Luke is everything I wished for in a cat, except independent. He greets me at the door when I get home, curls up next to me when I feel sick, stays off my counters while I’m looking, loves people, and plays Godzilla with my grandsons (he lies under their Lego elevated train and waits for the plastic train to the rumble over his head. Like Godzilla attacking, he derails that train with a single swipe of his paw and sends the grandsons into gales of laughter.)  As you can see in the first pic, nothing rattles Luke, including sharing his meal with the wind up rat we bought him to play with. (Note Luke’s Life Is Great Tag. Both for him and me)

 

 The one thing Luke isn’t is independent. Each time we left him for a weekend, he got sick. We were awhile getting an accurate diagnosis…separation anxiety. He’s worse than a dog when it comes to leaving his “people.”

 

But I’ll overlook that for all the delight my “cancer cat” has brought me. And he wouldn’t be a part of our lives if I hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer. He is one of the joys of cancer.