My Cat is Named Tamoxifen

Mr. Tamoxifen Tabby, near the hearth, Sonoma, CA

We call him Moxie for short. He and his ‘sister’ came from separate litters at Northeast Animal Shelter, one of New England’s largest no-kill shelters. We shopped long and hard. Originally, we wanted two troubled cats- you know, older and couldn’t be adopted apart, or maybe special needs. After being the patient for a year, I wanted to help heal something else. We had time. We had money. But in the end, after weeks of looking to ‘save’ something that just wasn’t there, we came home with two regular ol’ rescue tabbies. 

Mr. Tamoxifen Tabby was the formal name I eventually gave the pumpkin colored kitty I plucked from the back of his cage where he leaned, staring with giant peridot eyes, challenging me to love him. My husband went old school and named the petite, dark, mackerel striped girl he selected, after his teen (and current, I’m sure,) actress crush, Winona. Both animals were ‘juveniles’, less than a year old, no longer kittens, but not yet full grown.

All pet parents (like children parents,) will tell you theirs is 
the smartest/brightest/best-est ever boy or girl. Moxie, not so much. Don’t get me wrong, for a may-as-well-be-Garfield-incarnate, Moxie has some smarts. For instance, he knows that being called ‘douche bag’ is NOT a form of endearment in response to his bullying Winona. He is a big orange dude who, like most cats, seemingly gives zero fucks about anything but his next meal.

However, he did help me recover from breast cancer. So, there’s that.

Moxie's Person, Gillian Zed 2019    Photo @hoff96734

People go on and on about 'who saved who' and which living being really needed to be ‘rescued,’ and the whole litany of touchy-feely verbiage around adopting shelter animals. But I have proof. I know that my on-the-surface lazy, apathetic, bird-TV-watching, sunset-colored, lout of a cat, in fact, showed up in my life to help me heal. I don’t know where he read the job description, or why he decided to charm me among the parade of smiling fools that passed by his cage daily. But Moxie definitely chose me and told me so. I had no idea that little fuzzy orange thing was a Trojan Horse of physical therapy and calming energy. 

Less than a year out of my last breast re-construction surgery, I was still sore and favoring my left side where a breast was removed and eventually replaced with an implant. Sometimes it hurt like a mother-fucker. (A decade later, I still get treatment for mild lymphedema.) I was in a new town and alone most of the time. I didn’t feel confident, or strong enough, to venture far out of our New England cobblestoned village or my little job. I watched a lot of old movies.

Sitting in the center of our big sofa, feet up on an ottoman, with snacks and wine, (those were the days!) Moxie would join me. In the early weeks, I’d put him in the cradle of my extended legs, and he would purr as I pet him. But one night, after a month or so, I looked over at my husband and said, “Either my lap is getting smaller, or this cat has gotten a lot BIGGER,” and we both laughed.

And eventually, what was purported to be an average, orange male tabby cat, in fact, became a healthy-but-huge-fifteen-pound bundle of indifference. His sister remains a svelte nine pounds.

When Moxie out grew my lap, he could have chosen either side to settle on, or switched back and forth. Or, he could have abandoned me for one of the numerous carpeted shelves we had made to float over the heaters, providing a cozy perch in New England’s chill. But he didn’t: he would circle the couch and always land on my left. Even if I tried to move him, he would return to my left side. He STILL will only sit on my left. He made me work that arm, the one I really didn’t want to move, even though I’m fucking left handed. It was uncomfortable, but if the arm wasn’t active, keeping the circulation moving around the implant and all those scars, I ran the risk of permanent limited mobility. Moxie knew I could not resist petting him, or sometimes pick up his growing frame to hold against my chest, facilitating daily, and vital, physical therapy. I believe this to my core.

Moxie at sunset on the ranch, Sonoma.

And then, there’s his name. If you clicked on this story, it may be because you know EXACTLY, what tamoxifen is and perhaps it made you smile at this preposterous idea for a kitty name.  But you may also know that people who hear the word ‘cancer’ can react differently. I was a pragmatic patient, very busy keeping together a business that, unbeknownst to me, was about to tank along with the nation's economy. Fortunate to have a scientist husband who, ironically, was working in oncology. He was literate in the language of tests and numbers and codes, able to read my recovery road map. In the beginning, thinking I could control the beast, I tried to delay surgery. But in a rare moment of complete defiance of my wishes, a stack of my test reports in his hand, my life partner shook his head and said, 'No, that's not how this works.'

Eventually learning I had the ‘cut it out, get it out’ kind of breast cancer (DCIS) and tested negative for the BRCA gene mutation (which denotes disposition to breast and ovarian cancers,) I basically followed protocol. A lumpectomy, then full mastectomy, was done over the course of six months. I fought to keep my healthy breast, an uncommon but respected decision, resulting in over a year of breast reconstruction. I was spared radiation and chemo. I wasn't spared the depression, anxiety, and general post-multiple surgery discomfort that seeped into every aspect of my life, ultimately crippling me in an entirely different way: creatively.

Here’s the drill about tamoxifen in lay terms: a medication prescribed to be taken every 24 hours, for 5-10 years (yes, years, not months,) post mastectomy to diminish the opportunity for cancer to recur by creating, and maintaining, an inhospitable environment at the cellular level. But, down side, (and there always is one with cancer treatment, am I right?) is that it pushes you into early menopause with all the hell that comes with it. Tamoxifen amplifies the inevitable course a woman’s body would take, while also fast forwarding it.

So, (a-hem,) to be clear: strong and fast, chemically induced, hormonal, out-of-now-bloated-body outbursts, mood swings, appetite shifts, debilitating and drenching hot flashes and insomnia. Fucking A!? I was miserable a great deal of the time and had no one I felt safe enough with to share my pain. Except our cats.

I named him Moxie because I knew he would help me remember. And he did. I was always terrible with pills, even remembering vitamins was a non-starter.  But every night, just looking at him, my Tamoxifen Tabby, reminded me; his purr and tail wag did not stop until I took my meds. (Not long ago, my older daughter told me she employed a version of this, see text.) Then he would settle in- on my left- to watch every Ava Gardner or Myrna Loy or Ingrid Bergman movie all over again, while I petted him absentmindedly, loosening my scar-tissue-tight armpit. His name was the drug I had to remember to take, but the medicine was also the cat. Over the years, when told of my pet’s useful name, I’ve had a few smiling oncologists ask if they could pass that idea on, and of course I said yes. I wonder if there are other Tamoxifen Tabbies out there?

Winona & Moxie

It has been almost ten years that we’ve had the cats. For spoiled pets, they are in excellent condition. Moxie still is spry- and optimistically stupid- enough to chase his own tail, whirring in a cartoon-like blur of orange fur on the rug in front of the hearth. He likes to get drunk on the fire. Lingering far too long directly in front of the glass covered flames, until his coat virtually steams, then standing, staggers a few steps, flops down and rolls, stretching his sinuous frame across the rug, finally passing out, languid and at peace. He does this on purpose. No one is telling the cat to overheat himself in front of the damn fireplace. To enjoy it until it may become dangerous or detrimental, like staying in the sauna too long.

And in that, I see the old me, the pre-cancer me, finishing the entire box of chocolates, remaining in a toxic relationship, or staying too late at the bar. Part of surviving a life-threatening disease is a clearer perspective on when to say when. The dark allure and romance of self-destruction diminishes when if may no longer be up to you. It’s not that you are required to make better choices, it becomes natural and intuitive to do so, it just feels better, to feel better. (A complimentary mantra to AA’s reference to ‘sick and tired of feeling sick and tired’.)

Creating coping mechanisms is in a cancer patient's charter. We have to find our balance in navigating the real world's demands, responding to family's ever-hopeful-but-twinged-with-anxiety-smiles, and a lot of fucking information flooding our brain about a disease we wished to remain ignorant to. We all respond differently, to what is NOT 'just like' a well meaning friend's Auntie's experience, but our OWN individual dance with the demon that is breast cancer. And I'm here for whatever works for YOU, sister. No judgment and no criticism, veiled as support. Me? I got a cat and named him after an icky drug I had to remember to take, everyday, seemingly forever, to help the odds of me living longer. 

We didn’t have pets when our kids were little. We told them they were allergic, one of numerous lies fed to them over the years for our own comfort or convenience. My older daughter has settled into being a full on crazy-multiple-cat lady in her late 20’s, so she clearly got over this childhood abuse. I admire dogs though didn’t really have a relationship with many growing up. The Basset Hound, Rufus, who lived in our home when I was 5-16 was not my dog, but the facilitator of communication between my parents. They divorced, after 26 years married, less than a year after he died.

Moxie's bed, left of my writing chair.

Realistically, I am too selfish for dogs, who deserve full time attention and focused energy. Cats, with their emotional distance, perpetual napping and solitude are more forgiving of the traveler and the screen-focused human. I leave my robe for Moxie when away on long trips. It takes him less and less time to greet me when I return, his aloof coyness supplanted by longing. Even though the rest of the family is there, I'm so blessed to be his person, a special love, missed when gone.

It's been ages since I stopped taking tamoxifen and Moxie's reminder meowing is now prompted only by his breakfast and dinner times. (He has an inner clock I'm pretty sure you could set Greenwich Mean Time by!) But we'll still be rescuing each other for years to come: from chilly evenings, from moments of despair, or worse, from the loneliness of grief. With breast cancer far behind us, we're stronger together, as an entire family, ready for what life brings next. I'm especially grateful for my cat, who remains my creative muse and inspiration to enjoy Every. Single. Day. You can usually find Moxie the cat in the window and perch filled, garden view room, we built just for Winona and him. Bored by birds he can not catch, often he is curled up snoring in his favorite bed, dreaming about snacks, right here, on my left.

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