Donald: A Cat's Life

Donald and I met on 11/12/2010 at the SPCA. I was much enamored of his orange tabby coat, but he would have none of it. He buried his face and allowed me to massage his ears because it soothed the itch of the ear mites from which he suffered, but that was the extent of his affection. He had me at meow.
    Ours has been an on again off again relationship. "On" when he needs a Can of moist food opened or his litter box cleaned.  "Off" when he is satiated and is satisfied that his poo and pee have been thus removed. Donald spent the first nine months of our relationship under the bed. I could lay in bed and listen to his large metallic purr emanate from under the bed. I assumed he was just playing Greta Garbo and he was telling me 'I vant to be alone'. So I gave him his space. Eventually, he came around.
     He was such a well behaved cat.  He always seemed appreciative, yet aloof.   Never jumping up on chairs, or tables, or counter tops. I thought it odd at first. Just not normal kitty behavior.  Since he was a stray found wandering on a military base, I figured he had been turned loose by a soldier deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. I assumed that he had never been properly socialized, or worse yet that he had been abused. I spent nights wondering what was going on in that little kitty brain of his that he couldn't tell me about.
     Donald always spooked easily. No matter how carefully I moved he would dash to his 'safe place' under the bed.  I've seen him at the slightest sound hurl himself off the bed and wipe out on the laminated wood flooring as he scrambles under the bed.   I have a small apartment, an efficiency really, so there aren't that many places for him to hide. He never had any interest in the front door, never asked to be let out, never met me when I came home. In the interest of full disclosure, Donald is a 12 pound, well muscled, scaredy-cat.
    As time went on, Donald realized that 'hey, maybe I should pay some attention to this dude who is feeding me'.  So...if I lay quietly on the couch watching a movie, Donald would grudgingly jump up and bid for my attention. And so it went for months. The head of my bed is next to a window that looks out over the roof tops. When Donald realized that he could lay there and watch birds flutter by, or snowflakes drift by, of course that immediately became his spot.  So now I wake up each morning to a 12 pound cat in my face.
     Donald started limping around the time of his first vaccination, November of 2011.  At first I thought he jumped of the bed and landed wrong. It was holiday time of 2011 so I put it off.  While we were laying on the couch I would massage his leg, and I could feel a lump around what would be his knee. I became concerned so I made an appointment with the vet.

    We always hope that X-rays will rule out cancer. Today, they confirmed our worst fears. Donald was diagnosed with bone cancer.  Many things run through your head, until you are confronted with an X-ray.  It is there, in black and white, literally. Donald was a trooper through the whole thing. I know he doesn't like to be held or manipulated and yet he stood still while they took the x-rays. He is on pain meds and catnip now as he hides under the bed.
    Today our journey begins.