The cat came and sat on me this afternoon. Pretty much on my breast. And purred away, doing that half shutty eyes thing that cats do.
Well, this all sounds perfectly normal, apart from my cat is not a lap cat. She will sit next to you, but she rarely sits on you. It’s just her way. She likes her own space, I respect that, it’s healthy. When I first got her as a kitten I was quite ill (mentally) and she used to to sit on my lap every night and purr away. When I stopped taking anti-depressants, she fucked off and led her own life, screwed the local Tom, got knocked up and was pretty busy from there on out raising her slightly deranged son.
During half term, when I was off work, she started sitting on my lap every day, to the point where Nate and I joked that maybe she could sense something. The week before half term I started feeling shit. Not ill, just run down and over tired. I remember saying to the girl I lift share with the week before half term that I didn’t think I’d ever been so tired in my life. Since that week it never went away, and I put it down to birthday celebrations, working too hard, not being healthy enough, being 40, etc. I was worried in November that I would burn out like last Christmas and come down with pneumonia, flu, norovirus or some other illness because I just didn’t feel right. I was waking up every morning feeling like I’d drunk two bottles of wine the night before when believe it or not, I rarely drink during the week. (Occasionally on a Thursday.) Several days I cried with frustration in the shower in the morning because I felt so shit and wanted to go back to bed, but I had too much to do. Once I got going, I was alright and could keep the momentum up, but it was a long term and it felt like it was harder than last year. Just before I found the life saving fat lump, I had noticed my jeans were looser and I was having to do my belt up one notch tighter. I’d lost half a stone without trying, which obviously I was really pleased about, because I had been trying to drop that half a stone all summer by living on mackerel and salads but with no joy. And then it just fell off! How wonderful.
Your body gives you signals. I knew something wasn’t right but I couldn’t honestly have gone to the doctor and said what wasn’t right, so I put it off. And I was pretty busy. That’s why, when I did find the lump in my arm pit, I bypassed the receptionist telling me I’d have to wait three weeks for an appointment and told her it was an emergency and I needed to see someone that day. The cat knew something wasn’t right, that’s why she kept sitting on my lap. Even when I was sat at the table working in the evening, she would cram herself in the small gap between my lap and the table, looking very uncomfortable but doing that half shutty eye thing to reassure me.
So the moral of this story is, pay attention to the signals. It’s definitely better to be paranoid and catch something early than it is to ignore it and hope it goes away.