In fact, she hasn’t stopped.  She gained back all the weight she had lost, and then found some more.  Now the floors creak when she walks, and she’s just FAT.

But it is such a relief that she’s better; and she really is a gorgeous cat.  Just look:

She’d better be healthy–I have six more months of that insane veterinary bill to pay off.  I look back on those horrible days of four to five daily sessions of sitting on the rug in the office, holding Hazel on my lap, and forcing liquid cat food into that tube, then pulverizing her liver medications and dissolving them in water to push through the tube….the many times Hazel threw it all back up on me.  The tube coming unstitched and flopping around, spraying brown stomach contents onto my shirt.  The rug from the office rolled up and sitting out in the garage, so it can be taken to the landfill.  The hair falling out of the back of Hazel’s head and around her neck.  The dreadful sensation of feeling her ribs and every ridge of her backbone.

No more of that.  I’d have to do an x-ray to find her backbone, now.  She went from 11 pounds healthy down to four pounds when she was sick, and I’m certain she weighs about 14 or 15 pounds now.  The other result of her illness?  She is so affectionate with me and with PC (who took on a good share of the feedings) that it’s just silly. 

Best of all, she’s back to her fighting Godzilla self.  She and Flower have spectacular wrestling matches, and then sleep on the rug within 2 feet of one another.  They still aren’t friendly, but they tolerate each other. 

But dang.  I have to reiterate my point.  There is NO SUCH THING as a free cat.