So I sent Wendy home to Seattle to take up her life with the understanding that if I couldn’t get along without help, she would come back. Twenty-one days after I began chemotherapy, my hair started coming out-great handfuls of it.

I was ready with my wig and scarves. Just then Dickens decided my pillow was a good place to sleep. I don’t know, perhaps he thought my balding head needed to be kept warm. I do know that in the mornings my pillow was a mess. It was covered with his fur and

my hair, making it hard to tell who was shedding the most.

Then there were the days Dickens raced me up the stairs. He romped and played and made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I tolerated the chemotherapy pretty well. Then, at last

I was through with chemo. All I had to do was wait.

In October my surgeon said, “We’d like to do a second-look surgery. “ After only an hour in surgery, through my anesthesia-induced fog, I heard my very delighted surgeon say, “It’s gone. There’s no cancer anyplace.”

I had my turning point!

I was going to live. Five days later I went home, and while I couldn’t scoop Dickens

up (he now weighed fourteen pounds and I was not supposed to lift anything over ten), I sat down and he crawled into my lap. “Well, cat,” I said, “it looks like I’m going to stick around for a while. We both made it. We’re survivors.” Dickens didn’t say much. He just stretched a little and purred and purred. — Beliefnet.com(concluded)