Author: Stacy Horn

I dropped Buddy off at the vet at 8am for his biopsy, which means abdominal surgery, a big deal in itself just to find out what’s wrong with him. My poor little guy. They’ll call me this afternoon. If he’s not too drugged out I can take him home at the end of the day.

I had a terrible revelation last night at choir. We’re working on the Brahms Requiem. The last time I sang this was exactly ten years ago, and just before we started working on it my cat Veets died of cancer. Ten years later and the very cat I got when Veets died may now have cancer and here I am singing the Requiem again. I even wrote “Veets Theme” in several places in the score because the music made me think of him.

On my way to rehearsal, I took a bunch of pictures of the kinds of things in the windows of the antique stores along the way. The weird things that people make and buy.

Buddy is home now, but I’m bringing him back to the vet in the morning for a biopsy. They found scarring of the heart valve and I didn’t quite follow everything about the heart murmur except that it’s not going to require any kind of treatment, which I don’t quite get and will ask about again. I was just following enough to get that they were relieved to not find a more serious underlying reason for the murmur. Also, it was a good news/bad news thing and I knew that was the good news so I was already gearing up for the bad news. There’s been some enlargement of his lymph node(s?) and his intestinal wall so they want to do the biopsy.

At the end of tomorrow I will be broke and will have to break into my modest retirement fund. I’m trying to look on the bright side and be happy that I have it.
It could be worse. It would always be worse. Oh God. How much does chemo cost? I’m guessing the answer is: a lot.

Buddy is at the vet now, getting a sonogram, and blood and urine tests. He’s in really bad shape. All his medications stopped working and he’s been throwing up and diarrhetic since around 4am.  And now he’s suddenly developed a serious heart murmur.

Meanwhile, in an effort to bulk Buddy up (who lost a pound and a half in the past two weeks) I’ve made Finney as big as a house and I’ve probably given him diabetes. Here he is peering down from the armoire.

So I’m a wreck with worry. Poor Buddy.  He was so sick and miserable he wouldn’t even eat babyfood.

I tried to go to the concert last night but it was a mob scene. That should have occurred to me. There was a long line, and then even more of us milling around, not quite ready to accept that we weren’t getting in. A man called out that there was a waiting list, but it was very long already.

So yeah. Poor planning on my part.

I’m trying to work up the energy to go to a concert tonight. It’s only a couple of blocks away, and this is the program:

– William Averitt’s Afro-American Fragments, based on texts by Langston Hughes.

– Classic spirituals and shape-note tunes, in arrangements by Marylou Jackson, Alice Parker, Brad Holmes.

– Choral works by Undine Smith Moore, Adolphus Hailstork, Ronald Stabeli, Frank Ticheli.

– The world premiere of Appalachian Requiem, by Michael Conley (WVC Musical Director) with chorus, soloists, string quartet, hammered-dulcimer, and piano.

I’d be crazy to miss it, right?? Here’s another picture from the park the other day. This is where I turned off 5th and went into the park.