New hope for cats with cancer

When cats get cancer there is not normally much you can do.  When it happened to Sparky, who is one of our resident ‘golden oldie’ cats we were very upset.  He’s been here most of his life since he was brought to us with bad injuries to his leg when he was a kitten.   Sparks was soon on the road to recovery and has always been fit and well and an active ‘greeter’ to all our visitors  until last year when he became lethargic, stopped going out to meet people and lost his normally big appetite.

Maybe it’s tooth problems?   We took him to the vet who cleaned and scraped and extracted a couple of teeth.  Sparky recovered from the dentistry but didn’t get much better.   Back to the vet again and for a more thorough examination this time.   It was bad news, our much loved Sparky had developed cancer of the throat.

We were devastated but the vet said to  let him go on as long as he was eating and comfortable.   It was moshed up food from then on and he didn’t seem to be in any pain and continued to eat although he wasn’t the same old character cat we’d known.   When he was younger, Sparky used to go up the fields to see his pony pal Danniboy, the two were inseparable when they first came in to the sanctuary.

Sparky became too frail to go very far and when we took him back to the vet before last Christmas we were not feeling very optimistic.   I dreaded seeing Jenny come back as I thought she would be bringing an empty cat basket.   But no, Sparky was still with us and the vet had decided to put him on new treatment for his throat cancer.

It’s a miracle injection and it works.   It makes the tumour shrink and life is worth living again for this wonderful old fella.    The only problem is that it wears off after four weeks or so and the tumour will begin to grow again.   We know when this happens because Sparky starts dribbling and loses his enthusiasm for food.

So it’s off to the vet every four weeks for this ‘magic’ injection.   Sparky doesn’t mind at all and it is giving him a new lease off life.   It’s not cheap but this new advance in veterinary medicine is worth every penny.

A donation, no matter how small, will help Sparky and all the other deserving cats who come in to us.  Please help them if you can.  [donate]