Coming home

This is my dad's favorite place these days, reading a book or a magazine in the balcony. Every day he gets a little better, and, according to the oncologist, the chemotherapy he underwent earlier this year helped to stay the cancer's progress, for now.

That's great news all around, especially after I've spent most of this year in Ohio worrying about what was going on here. But now the tables have turned and Geni, my faithful old viejola, is the one having a tough time back home.

Now that things are stable here at my parents' home, I'm leaving earlier than I had planned to join my husband, who's been caring for Geni full-time and who's also dealing with an anarchic Magellan, who's decided that she doesn't want to pee in the litter box any more. Her latest stunt was peeing on top of the plastic clothes hamper in the bathroom.

Before that, she went on strike, protesting the corn-based litter that I was using, which is fantastic because the cats don't track so much of it with their paws, reducing the need to sweep and mop the bathroom floor (where the litter is kept in the small apartment by the woods) every other hour.

But Empress Magellan didn't approve of the corn-based litter, preferring the gray-sand-looking one, so she took to pooping on the bathroom floor or the bathtub. My husband was almost at his wit's ends when I suggested that he change the litter back to the old one. Apparently the trick worked, because Magellan has decided to return to the litter to poop, although she still prefers the bathtub for peeing.

All this is to say that after 3 weeks here, I'll be going home next week to relieve my husband of his never-ending dog-nursing and cat-sitting duties. I hope Geni improves over the weekend because, if not, this might be the last days Geni spends among us. She's had a good run, though. Ailing from Cushing's Disease, she should've only survived 2 years after that diagnosis, which was given to us almost 7 years ago. She also survived an invasive, cancerous mast cell tumor and a traumatic radical surgery that included having the skin on her left flank cut in several places (like a slab of pork being prepared for seasoning) so that the skin would be tensile enough to heal. And this year she developed diabetes. And she's 15 years old.

No wonder the vet calls her "The Miracle Dog." She's been a fighter and a miracle all her life, that dog from the streets of Guaynabo, and she's been an integral part of our little pack since 1998. I'm praying hard to St. Francis for her to recover once more.

But sometimes even the strongest of warriors have to call it a life. And maybe Rusty has come back to get her so she can join him in his runs, as my mom says. I'm hoping it's not that time for Geni yet. I'm hoping she's still there to greet me when I come home next week. Here's to hope.