This is to primarily to update the people on dA who are not in direct contact with me. The rest of you have been so completely helpful and suppportive this week-- thank you so much

First off, my cat, my best friend of 11 years, has cancer. Not just lyphoma, but something called a thycoma, which is a condition in which the thylmus-- an organ that I believe deals with development-- becomes cancerous instead of going away. Humans can get it too. In Oliver's case, the remaining cells have developed into a 7x6 cm. tumor in his chest-- this would have killed him much, much sooner had he not been such a large cat. This mass is compressing his lungs and esophogus. It is also pressing on his left optic nerve-- which I found out actually goes along the spine in cats, instead of straight into the brain like in humans. This is what caused the uneven pupils that made me take him in for testing the first place.
He is terminal, and in fact is deteriorating much, much faster than expected. My mother says she thinks he may die on his own within a week. Because I refuse to let him suffer, and we're concerned about never finding him if he dies in the house, I have elected to put him down as humanly possible. I'm sad, but confident this is best decision.

Unfortunately, this means I might not be able to be there, as I'm currently rather laid up due to having all four wisdom teeth removed all in one go. I actually managed the procedure under concious sedation (my mom had signed me up for laughing gas, I wanted to be completely out but I accidently ate breakfast before I went in so I couldn't take the nap, dammit). Mom spent a good 20 minutes laughing at me giggling like a tard as the gas kicked in. As it turns out though, I'm just as mean and nasty when I'm on a mind-altering substance (those of you that want to get me drunk, take note of this), as I disagreed with my sister getting to skip school in her grief (I've been dealing with this since SUNDAY. She can deal with it for a day). So my mom had them turn it up. Or said they did-- at some point I was just utterly stupid. Didn't quite stop me from kind of freaking out over the novicane, which hurt like mad but then made everything below my nose completely dead. It was weird hearing the doctor narrating all this horrible things ("I'm scraping off the gums", "I'm going to use the drill now") and stitching me up. He had to drill out 3/4 of those bastards. The one that had come partially out of the gum was, in fact, the hardest to wrest from my joy.

Unfortunately, nobody gets to experiance me being high on the internets. The Percocett they have me on doesn't seem to really affect me, except to keep truly excruciating pain at bay and I was good and sober by the time I left the office. On the plus side, the narcotic IS keeping me pretty calm about the cat, which is a good thing as crying would physically hurt way too much right now. As a result, when we euthenize the cat, I probably won't go, since crying could possibly bust my stitches and just complicate things. And I wanted to hold him too but I doubt he wants his last moments to include me bleeding and choking all over him.

On a few happier notes: The AP exams are over for me, and I'm confident I passed them both at least. Also, my aunt's cat Pumpkin got knocked up (my aunt never fails to assume her cats are always the same sex and be wrong), presumably by her brother. So, in the true spirit of the circle of life/lifestream, one life ends and more begin. The fact that we will probably get one of these kittens is a good coping point for my siblings (I figure I'm leaving so it won't matter).

And that's it really. Working on the obscene number of projects left in the year, painting as much as possible (I have fallen for acrylics so hard it isn't even funny) and playing marathon sessions of FFVII in an effort to beat it before I leave. I'm almost to the end of Disc 2-- Hojo battle coming up, yippee. Talked to a few people about possibly rooming in the fall.

Again, thanks to everyone who has been here for me for her prayers and for talking to me even when she was supposed to be studying, for actually BEING present in the car when I got the news and letting me cry all over her, for the hugs (including proxy hugs from Sayo) for being a very distracting party and Toast for distracting me with dirty things.