Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, before or after work, I attended to my feeding rounds, leaving the drive-in for last. The feeding station was next to a hole in the fence that ran alongside the road, and Chris never seemed to stray too far from it. As soon as I got out of the car and called, "Chris!" he would appear at full trot, gushing happy meows.

Chris and I became the best of friends. Even when it was past his mealtime and he must have been famished, instead of lunging at his food, he purred loudly against my legs, demanding attention first. When I squatted down to stroke his bedraggled fur, he lifted himself up on his hind legs and placed both front paws on my shoulders, until his big yellow eyes were level with mine, our noses practically touching.p As my bond with Chris grew stronger, so did my resolve to find him a loving home. With five cats in our own household, adopting him was out of the question. According to my family, who was always frowning upon the cat hair on my clothes and the felines sprawled all over the scratched living-room furniture, I was well on my way to becoming one of those "crazy cat ladies" that you read about in the newspaper. My husband had already issued an ultimatum: "One more cat, and I'm out of here!" But, in spite of my best efforts, nobody wanted an older stray with battle scars and runny eyes. And bringing him to a shelter would have been an automatic death sentence.

The onset of autumn, with its storms and lower temperatures, didn't make things any easier. Soon, I was stopping by the feeding station every day, just to make sure that Chris was safe and sound. Every time I headed for the drive-in, I feared finding Chris dead or injured at the side of the road; or, even worse, not finding him at all. But, happily, he always showed up, within seconds of my calling his name.

Ironically, the life in grave and imminent danger was not his, but mine.

That fall, I found a lump in my breast, and, suddenly, I was faced with a human's most dreaded enemy: cancer. By the time I discovered it, the malignancy had grown to the size of a golf ball. When the doctor broke the news, I could tell by the look on his face that he was not very optimistic: I had a very rare and aggressive form of cancer, with few recorded studies of its response to standard treatments. Worse yet, mine was no stage I, caught-just-in-time lump, but an advanced growth that called for an immediate counterattack with all the weapons in modern medicine's arsenal: a barrage of chemotherapy, daily radiation, surgery - which could be successful, provided that some microscopic malignant cell had not already migrated to vital organs in my body.

In the wake of the initial despair, I realized that fighting such a formidable foe would require all my physical, emotional and spiritual resources. I refused to dwell on the statistics that pervaded most cancer literature and Web sites, and focused every moment of my day on positive thinking and activities that would promote my healing. I would not stand by idly. I started a regimen of exercises designed to strengthen my immune system. I meditated daily, visualizing a healthy me in a bright near-future. I switched to an organic diet of whole grains and fresh vegetables, and took massive doses of herbal supplements to boost my body's natural defenses. By mid-November, my hair had begun to fall out, and the chemotherapy had sapped my strength. I quit going to the café, but, although I had found someone to substitute for me on my feeding rounds, I tried to go see Chris at least once a week; I just didn't have the heart to say good-bye to him. I called the other volunteers almost every day to check up on Chris's safety. But when they told me that they had not bothered to call him to his meal, or that he had not shown up, I was beside myself with worry.

On Thanksgiving Day, while my parents were busy in the kitchen and other family members chatted in the living room, I begged my husband to let me bring Chris home. I am sure that, if I had been my strong, healthy self, he would have questioned my sanity and turned a deaf ear to my pleas. But this time, miraculously, he relented.

The dinner table was already set when we sneaked out of the house with a kitty carrier. I hadn't seen Chris in over a week, and my heart was pounding as we neared the drive-in. Would he still be there? Would he come right away, as he usually did? When we pulled up next to the fence, I couldn't believe my eyes. Chris was curled up right next his bowls, as if he knew that we were on our way. He put up no resistance when I lifted him up and placed him in the carrier, and he chattered happily all the way home. That night, he slept soundly in the cozy bed that I prepared for him in the sunroom, and so did I, for the first time in weeks.

In the days that followed, I took Chris in for a checkup, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. Living out in the elements had taken a toll on his health: He had a respiratory infection and enlarged kidneys, which requ ired a battery of tests. The vet's somber expression warned me that the news wasn't good. Chris was FIV-positive and had advanced kidney disease. The prognosis was grim: two weeks to four months, maximum.p "I know this is hard to take in . . ." the vet began.

I couldn't help laughing. "I am forty-three years old, and I have a rare tumor the size of a golf ball in my breast," I said. "You have no idea what I am capable of taking in." With my immune system impaired by chemotherapy and disease, the veterinarian advised me to keep my distance from Chris. Soon, she said, I would have to make the ultimate decision to have him put down. I walked out of the examination room and broke into sobs. My mother and aunt, who had accompanied me to the animal hospital, were adamant that I should opt for euthanasia with no further delay.

"Just look at him," my aunt snapped. "Why wait to put him out of his misery?"

With tears streaming down my face, I took a good look at Chris: the bald patches on his tail, the ragged ear, his sickly eyes so full of trust and affection. I took him out of his carrier and let him snuggle up under my chin, to my aunt's horror. As he purred away next to my heart, I felt the depth of our special kinship, and my commitment to him grew even stronger. We were united in our illness and misfortune, against all odds. No matter what the future held in store for each of us, I would never give up on him.

In the months that followed, as I fought for my own life, Chris fought for his. I got second opinions, tried new medications - ointments for his eyes, balms for his sores. He ate the best food money could buy and reveled in loads of TLC. At night, while he slept at the foot of my bed, I prayed for healing - for both of us. And, as my tumor kept shrinking with every round of chemotherapy until it became just a speck that the surgeon easily removed, so Chris thrived in his new, nurturing surroundings: His eyes cleared up, his tail filled out, and his kidneys returned to their normal size.

In the end, the cat who wasn't supposed to survive two months has been alive for more than two years. Today, he roams the house with the rest of the gang. And I am still here, too, celebrating another Thanksgiving with my family - and Chris - with double the gratitude for our second lease on life.