We love our Franny

Francis' days are numbered. Sad, but true. I haven't even gone to the vet yet (tomorrow) but I know it's coming. She is acting ok, but I think she may have a fever.
You might remember a post back in March about her having a surgery to remove a small lump on her stomach. Well, long story short, it has spread like crazy, out of control tumorous growths, since the surgery. It is mostly on her stomach and a back leg, but just over the last couple weeks she's gotten a couple of lumps on her back, close to her neck too. Most of the lumps are hard, but the main one on her lower belly is soft (I could look up the medical terms, but I just don't feel like it right now). She probably has a couple of conditions going on. The main lump started getting tumorous lesions a couple months ago (bleeding, seeping spots) and it's continued to get worse with more and more bad spots. It makes for some messyness around the house, but luckily she usually lays on hard surfaces or paper (easier to clean).
I thought about taking a picture of her to post, in case some people were really curious what it looked like. It is really bad though. It's so bad now, that people walking by will see her from several feet away and ask: 'what's wrong with your cat?!'.
She is just so happy though. She looks horrible, but you pet her and she purrs up a storm. She seems to be feeling ok, which is even harder to ask the question - when do you pull the plug? I can tell she's gone down hill more over the last couple weeks. Until this point though she has still been able to jump over chain-link fences and other places around the house, has even caught a few birds/rodents (gross. she always was a hunter), meows like crazy when you walk in the door.
Since we got her she's been super affectionate, almost to the point of annoyance. When she was younger she would try to suckle your ear! She has always slept with me, usually close to my chest and sometimes too close to my head. She always wants a paw touching my hand or skin. She hasn't been sleeping with me as much lately though, and I'm glad because then I'm less likely to think about her and be sad (and it keeps the sheets cleaner).
She is ONLY 3 years old.
It's very rare to see a condition like this with a cat so young, the vets say. She's on prednisone and a couple other meds.
I know I would be sad about losing her even if I didn't have Hank yet, but seeing his relationship with her makes it even harder to think about her leaving our lives. Since he doesn't go to daycare he's around her day after day quite a bit and she really is a best friend to him, with no siblings around. I swear it's one reason he crawled on the early side - to chase the cats. Moshe, our other 4 year old male cat, is also a buddy of his, but he roams outside so much more and Hank doesn't see him nearly as much. Hank loves to bark orders at 'Fra Fra', when he sees her doing something wrong (eating his food, etc), and he's always asking to pet her and asks 'Where Fra Fra at?'. Tonight when I was putting him to bed he was majorly stalling and asking for dada (who was gone) so I told him he could tell the cats goodnight. He petted both of them and gave them a kiss and told them 'Gu-night'. He asks where francis is all the time throughout the day and it's going to be hard to tell him she went 'bye bye' forever.
I'll never forget when I was home alone with Hank for the first time as a newborn, and I left the garage door partially up. Francis brought in a live ground squirrel into the house and let it loose! It looked like a sceen from a movie. As Hank would say: 'That Fra-Fra!'.
Sorry this is so long. I just couldn't get to sleep; night time always makes your mind wonder, and usually to unpleasant things. :(

high up on the bathroom medicine cabinet

Fran as a kitten on my parent's farm. She was the pick of the litter! Moshe is actually her half-brother. They had the same mom (obviously a roaming dad!).