MSI Press Blog

The cats in the window, Intrepid (tabby-mau mix) and Murjan (red & white Turkish van), were the best of friends. Murjan "raised" Intrepid after he was found as a small kitten crying in the grass after his mother died. Both were born in Jordan and were brought to the USA when we moved back home to California. Both were diagnosed at the same time with lymphoma though the vet said that it was pure coincidence. Intrepid was the younger by four years, but he had the worst case: his kidneys and liver were already damaged when we found out he was sick. Both began chemotherapy in summer of 2018.  Intrepid In October 2018, Intrepid , named for his daredevil approach to life, died. He was only 11 years old. As the days went by and the chemo did little more than make him loopy--actually, it was difficult to know whether the progressing disease was causing him to walk drunkenly or the chemotherapy side effect or both--he ended up on IV at home at times and IV in the pet hospital at t

Excerpt from Intrepid: Fearless Immigrant from Jordan to America (Leaver & Leaver): A Tenuous Beginning We do not know just how Intrepid got his start. We met him as a squalling, bird-legged, rough-furred, unkempt, insatiably hungry kitten of just a few weeks, being delivered to us by the hands of Ahmed, a professor of history at New York Institute of Technology in Amman when we were living and working in Jordan. Since our landlord hardly delighted in our adopting additional cats (we already had several that we had rescued from the streets), we typically brought them upstairs to our third- floor apartment, past his first-floor door, in cages, quietly. There was and would be nothing quiet about Intrepid, though. As Ahmed mounted one stair after another the squalls radiated in ever-increasing intensity. Clearly, Intrepid had had a difficult start. A kitten so little (perhaps 4-5 weeks—a guess) could not have been weaned from its mother. Very likely, the mother had died

  Carl and Murjan sharing a Thanksgiving dinner Gaudete Sunday is coming up--an oasis in Lent, and, like other Sundays, a time we can eat a full meal! If our beloved Murjan were still with us, he would be perching on his chair next to Carl (wish he, too, were still with us, 2021 stole two beloved members of our family), savoring the smells of the fat of the land (well, maybe, of pancakes -- he at those, too), and patiently (yes, he was a patient cat, almost humanly patient) for his share of the feast to be chopped up and presented for his enjoyment. Each of our cats had quite different personalities, but the two that stand in stark contrast to each other are Murjan and Intrepid . They were both born in Jordan, lived with us there, and came to California with us 15 years ago. Both are now on the other side of the rainbow bridge, ravaged by the same kind of cancer, feline lymphoma. Intrepid is interred with his devoted human to whom he was equally devoted, Carl, and Murjan's ashes

  Excerpt A Real Home and Food For the first time, Intrepid had a limitless supply of food and water. He understood that he could eat whatever and however much he wanted. He did not understand the limitlessness of the supply. So, he hunkered down beside the cat food bowl in the kitchen, never leaving it except to use the litter box.   How he knew to use the litter box was an enigma. Perhaps he saw the other cats using it. Perhaps something about it came to him instinctively. From the very first day, he was always a clean cat.  Ultimately, after a number of weeks, he realized that the food would not disappear, and he ventured out to explore our other rooms, all of them very large: two bathrooms, three bedrooms, a dining room, a living room, and a closed-in sunroom. One by one, he explored them all.  In the living room, he discovered tall plants. Somehow, he discovered that though the plants were five and six feet tall, if he could get a running start, he could take a kamikaze

  This is not the first time we have written about cat cancer in a Caturday post. We learn more about it over time, and it seems that more in general is learned about it over time.  Blind Cat rescued share the following interesting and information post about cat cancer:  Feline Carcinoma (blindcatrescue.blogspot.com) . Cat cancer not only occurs, but at least in our household has become common as our cats have aged. Among our cats, three have died of it, and two are living with it. The breed does not seem to matter; it appears that cancer is blind to breed. Intrepid was the first to be diagnosed with cancer and the first to die with it. In his cancer, it was small cell lymphoma. He lived only a few months after diagnosis. His vet missed the cancer -- that happens with people, too. After describing Intrepid's late night howling to a friend who works at the SPCA, he gave us the name of a vet with excellent diagnostic skills. She immediately intuited the problem, scoped Intrepid, fou

  I have written a bit about the process of pets dying before, along with the ways in which vets can be (or not) helpful. In that post, I shared a book by Barbara Karnes on understanding the pet-dying process, which I had found very helpful and which would have provided me with a fair amount of relief and guidance had I known about while Murjan was still alive. It explained much about his dying process and death that was comforting in retrospect. You can read that post HERE . In this post, I want to share the emotional aspects not only of the dying itself but also of the role of the support community (which should be supportive but in our case was not so, at least not to the extent that we needed and that could have been). As a result, my experience with Murjan's dying days were traumatic--more traumatic than they should have been because of lack of support from the veterinary hospital that should have been my source of support.  As I explained in the earlier post, Murjan had been

  This week's book back story features Intrepid: Fearless Immigrant from Jordan to America by Carl and Betty Lou Leaver from the publisher -- When Carl Leaver's beloved cat -- with quite a unique personality -- died from cancer, he found one way to deal with his grief was to compile the pictures he had made over the 11 years of Intrepid's life into a story. For sure, Intrepid did have a story. Ironically, Carl died from cancer three years ago. Intrepid is buried with him. Purchase the paperback at 25% discount with coupon code FF25  at the  MSI Press webstore . For more posts about Carl Leaver and his books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our  author au pair  services will mentor you through the process. Interested in receiving a

  This is a series of Caturday posts on the topic of taking in  feral cats .  General information (from pervious posts): For a few decades, we have rescued feral cats. In fact, with only one exception, our "domestic" cats have been ferals that we brought inside to join other ferals, already domesticated, as part of a bonded cat family. Right now, we have five cats (alas,  Murjan , the single non-feral cat we had, died from cancer last fall), all of whom get along pretty fabulously. Of course, all of that is easier said than done, and the bonding took time -- lots of it. Here are some of the things we did to create our cat family, some of which is not at all typical of what others have done, but it has worked for us. We don't trap the feral cats at all; we win them over and invite them in. We do this by feeding them a distance from the house and walking away, then moving the dish closer and closer to the house and walking less and less far away, until they are eating at ou

  Murjan went over the rainbow bridge tonight after a valiant three years of fighting lymphoma and with such indomitable spirit that even on Sunday, after his hydration, he jumped down from the chair he was on, certain that he still had the springing power that he has always had. But he fell and landed on his side. Clearly, he hours were numbered.  His last days and hours were so typical of cancer patients. (Check the MSI Press website in a few weeks; there are plans for a cancer resource page for people and animals -- those questions that one can never find an answer to in spite of how much time you spend on Google; the tentative page name is Carlr's Cancer Compendium. And check out the book on cancer by Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission ) First, the chemotherapy stopped working. Then Murjan lost interest in food, then in drink -- and then his spirit left his body. Just like his owner, MSI Press graphic designer, Carl Leaver, a month earlier. Murjan was born in Jordan and moved to S

  excerpt from  Intrepid  by Carl Leaver and Betty Lou Leaver Preface All cats are special, but occasionally one is unique—so unique that you know that this one time, this one cat’s lifetime, is the only time you will encounter such a soul. That makes every day with the cat a delightfully special day, and it makes the death of such a cat a real tragedy. The memories linger, and they are no less sharp a year, or two years, or three years later than they were when they took place. Intrepid was just such a cat for us. So many things remind of us him nearly every day: replacing a light bulb—he would always climb the step ladder to help, putting up a Christmas tree—we never could when he was around because he would eat it or any plant, and the silence of waking up in the morning—he always woke us by pushing onto the floor any moveable item he found on the bureau (and, regardless of weight, he could usually find a way to move any item there). Missing Intrepid is part of our daily life now. F

 Taking a little step back from book publishing and a stride into read life, this Caturday I share with you a piece of daily life. Every morning I find a  toy monkey on the floor when I wake up. This toy monkey sits on the bureau every night, and every morning, there it is again on the floor. This morning it was lying on its back. Our cat Wooper (I caught her doing it) swipes it onto the floor and plays with it. She learned that from little Intrepid, who died three years ago but not before he taught Wooper how to play with big toys. A new wrinkle appeared today. Wooper took her monkey to bed with her! I found it on the bed when I walked into the bedroom this afternoon. Intrepid, Wooper's trainer, was barely double the size of the monkey. He earned his name. His favorite toys were dog toys and human toys. He now lies together with his owner in a grave that gets regular family visitors. (Some cats are more human than people!) For more Caturday posts, click HERE . For more posts abou

SHELLY Shelly starred in the book, How My Cat Made Me a Better Man , by Jeremy Feig -- and that book placed as finalist in the Book of the Year award. For more posts about Shelly and the book she inspired, click HERE . INTREPID Intrepid is a memoir and love story written by grieving owners when he died at age 11, far too young, of cancer. For more posts about Intrepid, click HERE . SULA Sula is perhaps the most famous cat of MSI Press. She has written six books.        For evidence of Sula's Internet fame, click HERE . For more posts about Sula and her books, click HERE .

  A couple of months ago, in a Cancer Diary post, we shared the ways in which cats get cancer. When our first two cats, Intrepid and, pictured above, Murjan, came down with cancer (small cell lymphoma), one of which died within four months and the other which lived an additional 2.5 years, we were in shock. We were aware that cats could get cancer because of our experience with MSI Press author, Sula , parish cat at Old Mission.  But then it really hit home and in big numbers.   First, Intrepid and Murjan .  Then, two other cats have since been diagnosed with cancer.  Happy Cat beat skin cancer, after only one round of freezing it off his nose.  Snyezhka is now a one-year cancer survivor at the Animal Cancer Center in Monterey, Califonia, where she sees Dr. Teri Arteaga, who is also Sula's vet oncologist.  That totals 2/3 of our 6 cats! Different cancers, different cat backgrounds (all are adopted street cats), different cat breeds. No idea of causes, either, but clearly no cat i