Mato's Blog

Wendy jumps down from the bed and lays down on a small carpet. It is the most beautiful carpet that I own. The carpet is blue and has a frame with abstract motives that look like African artwork.

I don’t know why Wendy jumped down, as she just lays there lazy and stretches herself and yawns. She could as well have stayed on the bed. There was continuous snowfall In the last days and everything is covered with a thick layer of heavy wet snow. The cats are weary of going out and being wet and cold but they are also becoming bored indoors and in the last days they had all kind of funny ideas how to pass the time.

Fortunately most times the cats sleep and their preferred place is the big bed in my bedroom. I’m also there, working on the computer. I could as well use the computers in the music studio or in the office, but the bedroom is more cosy. While I’m typing text and clicking through a jungle of websites and trying to make sense of the mostly incoherent and inconsistent informations I occasionally look over my shoulder at the cats to reassure myself about my very private personal reality.

As Wendy establishes herself on the carpet, I decide to make a short break and sit down beside her. We look at each other quietly for some time. Wendy is a lovely young and seemingly healthy cat. How old could she become? Maybe 19 years old like Lizzy? How old could I become?

If she lives as long as Lizzy, I would have to reach my eighties to accompany her till her last day. At present I feel healthy and free from any ailments. But the fear of cancer looms in the back of my mind. It is a menace that always hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles. I had a lymphoma cancer 10 years ago and went through four cycles of chemotherapy. I’m in remission since then and the doctors told me that I can forget about it. But chemotherapy is intrusive, I remember vividly the days when I was laying in the hospital bed while the poison was pumped into my body for several hours. I also remember the day when I was standing in the shower cabin and all my hair was on the floor of the shower tray.

The aftereffects of the chemotherapy (gastritis and hormonal imbalances) haunted me for a long time and this treatment has for sure reduced my life expectation by some years — who knows how many?

Wendy had also her share of health troubles. When we fetched her from an abandoned farmhouse, we brought her instantly to the vet and she got all routine treatments. One week later we had to go there again and that was not the last visit. It soon came out that she was infected with every possible strain of fecal parasites (protozoan parasites, giardia) and fecal bacteria (campylobacter bacteria, clostridium perfringens). Like her fellow kitten Cindy she was suffering from diarrhea and often had blood in her stool. For a few weeks she was so sick that I wondered, if she would make it through another day and when I woke up in the morning I looked after her and was very relieved when I food out, that she was still alive.

She often felt pain and sometimes whined and meowed desperately. I can remember when I once left the front door open and she rushed out into the hall and tried to escape. She didn’t understand, that her terrible condition was not our fault and that we did everything possible to cure her sicknesses.

Some of these infections are nearly incurable and I’m quite sure that she still is infected and it could also be that I am infected because this are zoonotic disease which can spread to humans. Maybe I’m suffering from bartonellosis, coccidiosis, giardiasis, toxoplasmosis or whatever. Since my cancer outbreak I have developed a tendency toward hypochondriasis and alone the consideration of a possible infection makes me feel sick in my guts.

I have stated it before and I have to state it again: it is all in my brain! On one hand I’m not impressed by the teachings of Dawson Church, though I consider epigenetic healing as possible in rare cases (the study of Shaw & Martin suggests, that epigenetic reprogramming might contribute to the concerted induction of repair genes by wound-edge cells).

On the other hand, though my skeptic disposition makes me believe, that battling a cancer tumor with meditation could be a tough job, the feeling of happiness and content will undoubtedly help regulate my neurotransmitters and hormones and will increase my immune response and the self healing capacities of my body cells. To bring it to the point: if my lovely cats have infected me with diseases, they will also greatly contribute to overcome the diseases.

We are in this together, I think, softly striking Wendy’s fluffy fur. She yawn’s again and then jumps up onto the bed and takes her old place to continue sleeping, while I sit down on the computer and continue writing.