Busy Cat Lady and Crazy Cat

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Pamela Knudsen

The past few weeks have been busy! Finally, my life doesn’t just consist of reading, daily naps, bird watching in the yard and playing toss the pom pom with Samantha.

My post-cancer healing journey is picking up pace here, and although I’m still pacing myself by occasionally napping and know when to say no, I’m also being productive doing things I love.

The Blue Bell Foundation for Cats is having its seventh annual Cat’s Meow Champagne Brunch Fundraiser on Sunday, September 26th. Over the past several years I’ve coordinated that event, but that duty was passed on to Blue Bell’s new assistant director this year.

Blue Bell residents Angelo (RIP) and Cody

I’m still a Cat’s Meow planning team member and have been having a blast working on promotional efforts and being the venue liaison.

Cat Lady with Ed Steinfeld, morning host on Laguna’s KX FM radio after my interview about Blue Bell, Cat’s Meow event and related topics

I named our family cat Beth after the same name of a song by 70s rock band Kiss. Does my t-shirt look familiar?

I dusted off my children’s book manuscript and am working on final edits with my editor, Lynette Brasfield, which has been a thrill. I love it when the magic of words and ideas come together on paper and tell a story. After a gazillion versions, several critiques and frustrations over the last eleven years, the story, which includes protagonists Topper and Lexington (two of my kitty angels), is coming together. I don’t want to leave my story in the hands of chance as far as if it gets picked up by a publisher, so I’m going the self-publishing route. Besides sidestepping the luck of the slush pile draw, the learning and creative process of what goes into making a book is just the challenge I need to start my new life chapter.

Children’s book muses, Topper and Lexington

I have not yet been able to enjoy evenings of live music at my favorite venue in town, The Cliff, as I’m pretty wiped out by dinnertime, but I did manage to get to my other happy place, the Sawdust Festival. My energy levels picked up just in time for two afternoon visits to the longstanding beloved summer art show in Laguna Beach during its last week for the season. I’m certain that being in the presence of artists and their works, live music, and the rustic ambience of Laguna Canyon, an alternate universe radiating joy and love, has aided in my healing.

Listening to classic rock at Sawdust

Visiting with artist Michelle S. Burt at Sawdust

Meanwhile, back at the cat cottage, Samantha has become more at peace with her new home and new cat mama, although quelling her overly sensitive nervous system that triggers cystitis, remains an ongoing challenge. Last weekend high anxiety kicked her nervous behavior into high gear, starting Friday with incessant meows while scratching every cupboard door in the cottage, nervously pacing from room to room until she leapt from a countertop onto the top of the fridge to a ceiling beam, to all surfaces on high.

Crazy Cat Eyes

I finally calmed her down with gabapentin; but when that wore off on Saturday, she became crazy cat again. I concluded that her behavior was triggered by the nightly outside goings-on of squeaking and scurrying rats. I sprayed a nontoxic repellent in suspected areas, and by Sunday she’d calmed down. Those rats must have scurried off to another nest.

For the moment, with Samantha peacefully sleeping on the small rattan console next to my desk as I write, all is right in our little world.

The Reality of Radiation

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Pamela Knudsen

Friday, May 28^th marked my eighteenth radiation treatment, a milestone reaching the halfway point. A week ago, I didn’t think I could go much further down the radiation road. Because of what is getting radiated—my pelvic area, colon and the para-aortic lymph node, the side effects have been, at times, worse than chemo. Initially, my radiologist told me that I’d receive twenty-five to twenty-eight treatments. I could not get an answer on why the radiation treatments increased to thirty-six other than my treatment plan included thirty-six from the get-go. I chalked it up to miscommunication, but was not comfortable with getting such a high dose of radiation. I got a second opinion from a radiologist with a different medical group who put me at ease with a reasonable explanation for how the number of treatments are decided based on standards that are calculated from studies done over the years. Different cancers have different treatment schedules. Basically, the number of treatments administered is enough to kill remaining undetectable cancer cells without causing permanent damage to the organs being impacted by the radiation. Long-term side effects are still a possibility, but are slim to none. He further explained that I need more treatments to the lymph node than the pelvic area because the tumor that formed in the node was about the size of a sugar cube and contained about a billion cancer cells, and odds are, about a million undetectable cancer cells could still remain in the node. Yikes!

Excuse me, how many cancer cells?

Even though radiation targets only the cancer cells, good cells get damaged in the surrounding target area, mostly to the GI system in my case. The good cells kick into healing mode after each treatment so I’m very fatigued most of the time, and the GI issues, well, let’s just say I’ve been miserable. I’ve lost a couple pounds in the midst of still working on gaining weight. My stamina is weak again and my nerves fragile. But—the second opinion doctor assured me my body would indeed heal despite the draining short-term side effects. Being in excellent health for most of my adult life will support my healing and will help to sidestep the potential long-term side effects of radiation. So there is something to be said about a healthy lifestyle despite getting cancer. It will help the odds of me coming back strong and never seeing a cancerous tumor in my body again. The second opinion radiologist ended our Zoom meeting by asking me if having peace of mind knowing that I did everything I could do to kill cancer cells would be worth living through the short term side effects.

I’ve read several Dean Koontz novels over the years, even sat next to him at a BIA dinner meeting and chatted with him about my favorite book of his, Watchers.

You betcha it would be worth it.

And how, you ask, do I manage the bad days? Lots of naps and a recent prescription of Lomotil to quell the GI distress has been a godsend, but the best medicine is Samantha.

Sweet peas from my dad’s garden.

Samantha helping me select a channel.

Samantha “reading” a beautiful picture book by artist/author Amy Grimes, And The Light Comes In

My amusing, sweet girl.

The Manifestation of Cat Mom

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Pamela Knudsen

After I sold my condo three years ago and started packing-up all my stuff in preparation to move, I came across a journal from my high school days. One entry stated that I didn’t want kids, that I didn’t like kids much and that I didn’t want to be married. Well, that explains things! At the age of fifteen, I set an intention that stuck. I’ve never been married and never had children. In my late 30s the desire to have a baby finally kicked-in, but my boyfriend at the time who I eventually became engaged to did not want kids. It was either stay in the relationship or break it off with the hopes of finding the right match and someone who wanted kids. I loved this guy and my desire to be in a romantic partnership was stronger than my need to have a child. After four years it turned out that we weren’t very compatible and despite the engagement, he was very trepidatious about marriage, which at the time was something I wanted. Turns out my views on marriage had changed since that teenage journal entry.

When I purchased a condo in my mid-forties, I thought about adopting a child. I had the room to raise a kid and a well-paying paralegal job. But the job was demanding and my workdays long. Between work, taking care of two cats, and myself I knew that I would not be able to dedicate the time, and would not have the energy it took to properly raise a child on my own. Instead…I rescued another cat, Topper.

Topper and Froggie

I loved having three kitties in the house. Lexington, Punkie and Topper. When Punkie passed away at the age of 20, I rescued another kitty, Bella. I wanted a kitten at the time, but at the age of eight, Bella had twice been relinquished to shelters. By the time I met her, she’d been with a rescue group for several months (older cats are often overlooked for adoption). Besides feeling an instant connection with Bella, my heart hurt for her. I wanted to give her the best home ever and all the love she deserved, and I succeeded. I witnessed Bella blossom from guarded and scared to loving and confident. Three years after I adopted Bella she died from lung cancer, which was devastating and took a long time to overcome. But then another cat, Bobcat sauntered into my life and once again I had another feline to love and care for.

Bella

Bobcat

Bobcat, Topper and Lexington have all passed, and now I have a new kitty, Samantha. Once again, my maternal instincts have resurfaced and are being put to good use. It didn’t occur to my fifteen-year-old self that I could have kids that didn’t involve human children, that I could adopt children of the feline sort.

Samantha and “Bobcat”

I’ve been a proud cat mama for thirty-three years. And although I actually adore children unlike my younger self, I have no regrets for not having children of my own.