Comics Jam War - winners announced

So, some time among Bob's trials, I was participating in the first
Comics Jam War. The Jam War is sort of an organized follow up to 24-Hour Comic Day.

The 24-Hour Comic is an exhausting excersize - creating a lot of comic book in a very small span of time. 24 pages in 24 hours, compared to professional industry standards of about a page a day (and thats just the pencils - no writing, lettering or inking).

Jam War takes the basic premise and relaxes it, then turns it into a competition with cash prizes. Eight pages in 12 hours, and you get to work in teams. Compared to a 24-Hour Comic, this is a leisurely pace. But still crazy fast.

Anywho, I had the good fortune to partner with a writer who I think is going to be quite the up and commer and an artist who is amazingly fast, talented, and doesn't like inking his own work, so I did that part, along with the lettering and digital compositing.

So, April 1st, our team and 7 others gathered at BuyMeToys.com in Mishawaka. Only teams working out of offcial (fee paid) host stores could enter (over 100 teams entered from US and Canada... I think Canada, Maybe Mexico? I forget, but it was over 100). We had a blast. 12 hours of blood sweat, tears, giggling and ink. In the end, 5 of our location's teams finished, and two of the books looked especially promising.

And in the end... One of those books took first place honors. The other, my team, recieved honorable mention this means that of the 100+ teams, our will be one of the seven chosen to be published in the upcoming (July) Jam War book. That, and 10 copies each of the book, is our award. And the joy of the experience and pride in the accomplishment.

Not ready to die yet!

I got the update from Dr. Warzee this afternoon. Bob is doing great! She was able to pull his thoracic drain tube this morning. He is eating. AND he's sulking because he has a bandage on his chest. That sounds like my boyo!

According to my source on the inside (thanks Jess!)the lung lobes are being processed today and will be set for evaluation tomorrow. I'm excited to see what type of nastiness was removed. I'm also a little bummed that I won't get to see the mass itself. I'd look to go eye to eye (or eye to tumor as it were) with the bugger and do my best squinty-eyed glare. Of course, I'd also kind of like to stomp on it but that's not professional. Or really very helpful. Yes, perhaps it's best left in Jessica's hands now that Dr. Warzee's have extracted it.

So, Saturday Tony and I will be driving up to E.L. to pick up our skinny little guy. Then we'll start fattening him back up in preparation for chemotherapy or the next surgery. I'm not going to worry too much about that now. I'm just thrilled that he's decided to be with us for at least a little while longer.

The Big Day

Yesterday Bob and I arose at 5am and set out for East Lansing at 5:50. Bob's sedative again worked well and this time I remembered to order caffiene from the 24 hour Starbucks. I was actually able to feel the intestinal mass on Sunday and was a little worried that once again the plan would have to change.

Things were not looking so hot when we got up to M.S.U. Bob was down to 6 pounds, 10 ounces. This is more than a pound lost since his first visit last month. It's also just about half of what his normal (slightly pudgy) weight is. What was extra scary is that he has actually had an appetite over the last 10 days. Dr. Warzee could also feel the intestinal mass. When I left the plan was to repeat the chest radiograph to check for metastasis, repeat the abdominal ultrasound (I wanted to know how much the intestinal mass had progressed) and repeat a CBC. CBC stands for complete blood count. I had run one, with a chemistry panel, last week but he looked a bit anemic to Dr. Warzee and because of the resolving abscess his white cells were a bit high on my CBC. Pending any disasterous findings, surgery would be today.

I was all done by 9:20 and left Bob to Dr. Warzee. After some aimless wandering around downtown, I decided to just head for home. I stopped for some additional caffiene and hit the highway at about 10:30. It was gloomy, rainy and cold. The temperature had actually dropped from the very early morning. Not a pleasant 2 and 1/2 hours, but I was very thankful for the heater and the windshield wipers. And, I got home in time to take a toasty warm shower before work.

I go to work and had a message from Dr. Warzee. The ultrasound showed no change in the intestinal mass (must just be easier to feel because he's sooooo skinny now), but the radiologist felt that the chest mass might actually be in the lung rather than the mediastinum. The mediastinum is the structure that supports the heart, the trachea and the major blood vessels and lymph nodes within the chest. Different surgical approaches are needed for the lung (usually cutting ribs) versus the mediastinum (midline sternotomy - going through the breastbone itself). Would it be OK to perform a CT scan to confirm where it is? Yes.

This morning, I got the news: the mass is in the right cranial lung lobe, but given the size a sternotomy will still be the best approach. Anesthesia will start at 9:00 with the thoracic mass removal first, followed by debulking the leg mass if Bob is still stable.

As soon as I arrived at work I got the second call. The mass was indeed in the right cranial lung lobe. This was removed along with the right middle lung lobe because there were some suspicious nodules there. The mediastinal lymph nodes were too small to locate, but there was adherence to the mediastinum and the cranial vena cava (very major blood vessel). He's recovering from anesthesia and so far is doing well. The debulking was not performed because he was getting cold and there had been a blood pressure drop, but that's perfectly OK by me.

So, Bob's down 1/3 of his lung tissue but also down a very nasty tumor. Not certain yet when he'll be returning home. That's going to depend upon fluid accumulation in the chest, but he's made it this far!

General updates

I went to the dentist this week! The alarm did not go off on Monday morning so I woke up in a half-doze and thought, "Wow, it's light out and Tony's alarm hasn't gone off. I wonder how much longer I have to sleep?" I rolled over, looked at the clock, read 7:25, yelled a few expletives. Yelled something about getting up to Tony. Then, grabbing my robe so as not to flash the neighbors, rushed to the kitchen and downed my four capsules of amoxicillin. The directions were to take it an hour before my 8:00 appointment. Fortunately, our alarm clock is a little fast. I actually enjoyed the appointment. I like having my teeth cleaned. The dentist was quiet and focused, but not in an unfriendly way. I did have to a have a couple of fillings and he was very thorough in making sure that my bite was comfortable and there were no sharp edges afterward. So now, after the initial exam and echocardiogram and consultation with my physician I can finally say that I have clean teeth!

Bob is doing OK. He's still skinny (lost 2 ounces over last weekend), but he surprised me on Tuesday by chasing Colfax away from her dry food. If he wants to eat dry diet food instead of fatty canned food, more power to him. He's not been so good about the litter box so he's been shacked up in the cafe room with the doves when Tony and I can't supervise him. It also keeps Colfax out of the aforementioned fatty canned food. This prevents further butt bites as well. Tuesday is the next trip up to East Lansing. Hopefully Bob can have the surgery and all will settle down for a bit!

So Far ...

Bob is eating OK.

Colfax has been behaving herself.

No inappropriate urination or defecation.

Only one bout of vomiting.

Things are peaceful since the abcess burst.

I hope that it lasts until Bob's appointment on the 25th.

Bob and Colfax

We have another cat. Colfax is the queen cat in our household. Colfax is not pleased that Bob is getting canned cat food and yummy baby food to encourage his appetite. This means that I do a lot of chasing her away from Bob whe he is eating and removing his food when is done eating. Why? Because he will not stand up for himself. If she comes by he will stop eating and wander off to the nearest pillow to lie down. Colfax has gotten quite fat over the past few weeks. Bob has not seemed to lose more weight, but he is still between 7 and 7 and 1/2 pounds. Skinny skinny skinny Bob. Oh, and when Colfax eats canned food she vomits. Often on the furniture.

Sometime over the weekend the hostilites intensified. Bob was feeling very dumpy yesterday. Didn't want to eat, didn't want to follow Tony around the house. He wasn't even concerned that Tony and I were eating ribs within feet of where he was sleeping. "Crap", I thought, "he's thinking about dying again". So this morning I was super excited to see him wandering around and hear him complaining to me about something (lack of food? noisy birds? his assessment as to the best and worst non-litterbox places to urinate and defecate?). I picked him up and noticed that the fur over his right hip was really unkempt. Since this illness began he's been known to sit in the canned food, so possibly that was it. I looked closer. The skin was red and inflammed and there was a small amount of pus draining. I see a lot of cat fight injuries. Colfax had actually bitten him in the butt over the soft cat food!

Animals don't have a lot of correlation in their long term memories. The bite probably happened 2 or 3 days ago. So, I couldn't yell at Colfax. No, I just had to take Bob to work, restart antibiotics and ask Katie to clean his purulent butt up. Oh, and I've had to cancel his Thursday M.S.U. appointment. So, the tumors get a little break. Also, Colfax threw up a large part of bob's morning meal on one of the couches. Again, not a very good long term correlative memory.

Sigh .

More of Bob

Sorry about the delay. Our computer at home has been down.

The ride home on Sunday was pretty good. I was planning on trying it without sedation, but Bob vomited before we'd gone four miles, so out came the ace. He's been happy to be home, wanting lots of attention. His appetite isn't great, but he'll nibble on baby food and seafood flavored cat food. He apparently enjoyed tuna and sardines at M.S.U. so I'll have to pick up a can on my way home. He is pooping, too, so no intestinal perforation!

I actually had the chest rad taken this morning while I was in surgery. It hasn't gone away. In fact, it seems a little bigger to me. I'm going to give Dr. Warzee a call this afternoon and we'll move to the next plan. Most likely the chest mass is a thymoma and surgery is going to be the option. Since Bob is on prednisolone, I probably won't be taking him up for surgery until I can wean him off. Probably next week.

I just looked up thymoma in the magical Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine by Ettinger. Go figure, true thymomas are uncommon :). However, outlook is good with surgical resection, especially in well-encapsulated, discrete tumors. We definately have well-demarcated on the rads, so I'm going to consider that discrete. Thymomas also tend not to spread, so that leaves the origin of the intestinal tumor open. I think I feel good about the thoractomy, though. Bob's weight loss, lack of appetite and depression could also be attributed to a thymoma. Won't know for sure until pathology comes back, but it sounds like a probable diagnosis.