A Christmas cat
<p>The best Yule present my wife and I are getting this year is that our beloved cat Sugar is not dying.</p>
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<p>Since her <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3708">medical crisis in September</a> that hasn&#8217;t been anything we could take for granted.  She bounced back <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3773">amazingly</a> afterwards, but the vet&#8217;s sober best guess at the time was that she&#8217;d be lucky to live another six months.</p>
<p>That was a little under three months ago. But she seems extremely healthy &#8211; lively, sociable, inquisitive, eyes bright, fur glossy and tail held high.  One of the blog&#8217;s regulars was visiting this weekend and remarked that Sugar didn&#8217;t even seem elderly.</p>
<p>The cat in question materialized under my desk a few moments ago to nuzzle my foot and meow companionably at me. Now, after a nice ear-scratching,  she&#8217;s padding over to Cathy&#8217;s office, probably to do likewise. She&#8217;s happy.  She&#8217;s <em>good</em> at happy.  And, it would seem, at being indestructible&#8230;</p>
<p>Well, we&#8217;ll see.  We&#8217;re supposed to take Sugar back for another sonogram soon. I&#8217;m worried about those apparent hepatic cysts that showed up on the last one; they could do her in even if the nephritis stays beaten.</p>
<p>But whatever may be wrong with Sugar, she&#8217;s clearly not in pain or weakened.  She&#8217;ll be with us for a while yet, doing what she does best &#8211; purring at her humans, guarding them from the insidious <a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=867">bathroom demon</a>, curling up next to us at night to sweeten our dreams, making us proud every time she welcomes a houseguest to our home.</p>
<p>The best Christmas wish I can think of for all of you out there is this: may you have a blessing in your life as lovely as our cat &#8211; and the wisdom not to take it for granted while it lasts.</p>
