Well, another holiday season has arrived. Yeehaw.
Sorry to sound so depressing, but this year's holiday season is not one filled with cheer for me. It's actually been a great year, full of good things like a new job, opportunities to meet fellow bloggers from the Al Franken Show blog, trips to Martha's Vineyard for relaxing times, a conference trip to New Orleans exactly one week prior to Hurricane Katrina. I published a major paper in the Journal of Genocide Research, and this past weekend, had a fabulous time as Shopper X in the Billionaire for Bush Follies show, "Dick Cheney's Christmas Spectacular." And tomorrow, I head home to see my family. All in all, a good, solid year.
The season, though, brings such sadness as I've gotten a new diganoses on my lovely little kitty, Zanzibar. I thought she had a fatal heart disease, as was diagnosed by my original vet. It was fatal, but with the right medications, she could live longer than expected with the disease. Now I have found out that she actually has a tumor on her adrenal gland, a little bitty gland that rests above the kidney and squeaks out adrenaline and hurts like hell when it's impacted with a tumor.
She needs surgery to correct this, if the tumor hasn't metastisized and spread throughout her little body. The surgery is risky, and after having spoken with the prospective surgeon, it's not impossible to carve it out if it hasn't moved into a major artery between the gland and kidney. The kicker is, though, I don't have the $2500 needed for the surgery, so I have to make a choice: scramble to get the money to pay for a risky surgery that she not make it through, or leave it alone and let her live out her life, however that may be.
I hate this choice. I hate that it comes at the holiday times. I hate that I don't make enough money to pay for it easily. I hate that I live in New York at the moment, a most expensive place for everything. I hate it all, and the holidays just aren't helping with the overwhelming feeling of helplessness about my best friend, my companion, my heart.
I know it sounds corny, but for those of you with friends, I know you know what I'm feeling. It sucks. Badly.
I've been thinking of ways to scramble the money together, and I think I can do it, mostly, with maybe some help from friends. I haven't made up my mind one way or the other about the surgery, I have to wait and see if it's spread to her lungs first.
So, there's my sucky holiday season. Tis the Season. Ho Ho Ho.
I hope everyone has a great holiday. I will still have a great holiday. But I will be thinking and crying and working out a way to come to a decision about this. I've had her since she was born. It would be hard to lose her because I'm unable to pay for it. It would hard to lose her because the surgery is risky or the tumor has spread. It would be hard to lose her after the surgery is done, and complictions set in. In short, it will be hard to lose her.
Happy freaking Christmas.
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