Help Daisy beat cancer!
Donation protected
If I were to write a memoir, it would be called "Of Hairballs and 3 a.m. Poopy Bottoms: My Life With Cats."
Many of you have followed the story of our adoption of Daisy and Tiger in December 2011.
After discovering these two siblings (on my Twitter feed) whose owner had died and left them homeless at the age of eight, we couldn't bear to see them end up in a shelter and separated. We had lost our last kitty in a long line of rescued kitties just five weeks earlier, and for the first time in 22 years, our house was silent and empty.
From Twitter one day to our home the next, that's how quickly we made our decision.
[Here they are hiding behind the toilet when we first brought them home.]
Tiger has a tentative and anxious personality; she's too shy to sit on our laps for long, but she will come close and walk in figure-eights while we pet her. She's extremely polite and will tap your arm if she would like some attention from you. She has a black triangle on her nose that makes her look a bit comical, although I don't think she realizes it. She loves to play, and is the closest thing we've had to a kitten in many years. We've been so grateful for Tiger's good health, except for the occasional hairball.
[On one of the rare occasions when Daisy hasn't slapped Tiger and made her run away. Probably happened right after this picture.]
Daisy is a lap kitty -- when she feels like it -- and will look deeply into our eyes while we rub her tummy and scratch her ears. And let's be honest -- she has a MEAN streak with her sister Tigerliger, growling and hissing every time she comes near. Occasionally we'll find them miraculously sleeping near each other and wonder how that even happened. She has a funny stubby tail and an oddly-shaped hind end we call "rocket butt;" her vet thought she might have been injured as a kitten. And she has one abnormally small kidney. So she came to us with a few physical quirks, but nothing we couldn't handle.
In November of 2012, we discovered that Daisy had been losing weight. Always a picky eater, it was hard to know from day to day if her lack of appetite was just her just being a brat, or something else. Her doctor suspected IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, and she was treated accordingly.
But after months of dietary changes, probiotics, tests, and inevitable exploratory surgery, she was diagnosed with low-grade lymphoma (a common progression of IBD, we now know). The good news was that this cancer is considered highly treatable and nonaggressive, and many cats have lengthy remissions.
After having lost two previous cats to high-grade lymphoma (as many of you know who gave much-needed emotional support during those times), which is much more aggressive, we felt hopeful that this was a "better" kind of cancer to deal with. Also, cancer treatment can be very expensive, and we had gone into debt trying to save our previous kitties. But we're not the kind of cat parents who give up without a fight. And if our cat is feeling good and her quality of life is still high, then we fight for her.
Daisy has done great for the last ten months. On a regimen of chemo, appetite stimulant, corticosteroids and other typical cancer drugs, plus special hypoallergenic food, she soon went into remission, gained back all the weight she had lost (plus more!), and was back to her old self. She had come home from surgery with a feeding tube, but after a few months, she decided she didn't want it anymore and removed it on her own (yuck!).
Low-grade lymphoma still requires maintenance through chemo, but we had finally gotten her down to just four medications, which was a huge improvement! It was such a relief that she was feeling good and her test results were good. We celebrated every day that this little monster was still here with us and feeling strong enough to growl and swat at Tiger just for sitting too close.
Then earlier this month, her appetite waned again and she became lethargic. Her meds didn't seem to be working anymore, so Daisy's internal medicine specialist ran tests and performed an ultrasound.
We couldn't have been more shocked. Daisy's low-grade lymphoma had transformed into lymphoblastic -- high-grade -- lymphoma.
As we've always done with our furbabies, we are prepared to do what it takes to get Daisy healthy again, until the time her quality of life declines and it's clear that she's not going to improve.
She's starting a new recommended chemo protocol this week that is supposed to have good results against aggressive lymphoma. And because Daisy has already been in remission once, it's likely she can go into remission again. She's still young-ish (at 11) and in good health besides her cancer. We have high hopes of seeing her in remission again soon, if we can afford to pay for her treatments.
Unfortunately, her treatment will cost somewhere around $1,500 just for one five-week cycle (cancer sucks for many reasons, including the fact that it costs a fortune to treat). This protocol requires 16 treatments over the course of 5 months -- or five five-week cycles. At a total cost of $7,500, this is much more than we are prepared to handle.
We have been using CARE Credit to cover Daisy's expenses since last year and have already paid off one $6,000 balance, but the rest of our credit line will be wiped out with just two treatment cycles and we don't know what we're going to do after that.
I'm also researching alternative and supplemental treatments, as there are a lot of case studies online on cats that have been helped by methods besides chemo.
We are asking for any and all forms of help while we go through these upcoming new treatments.
For example, if you have a resource for a great cancer supplement or other feline immune support (Daisy's been on Onco-Support for ten months), let us know. Daisy's doctor has to approve anything we come up with, but we're open to suggestions (we've even heard medical marijuana can help with nausea in cats and dogs -- who knew?).
And of course, we are asking for donations to help us meet her expenses. Donations will be used for her new chemo protocol and any other supplemental treatments that we believe will help her. Donations beyond what we need for treatment will be used to pay down the balance on the CARE Credit card.
Rudy and I don't have much we can offer you in return for donations, but I do have plenty of public speaking expertise to go around, so to each person who donates $100 or more, I can offer a 30-minute public speaking laser coaching call OR access to my 7-week online home study program, "Speak to Engage: 7-Step Shortcut to Public Speaking Success."
And of course, if you're not interested in public speaking, don't feel that you have to accept my gift in return for your donation. I just want to be able to offer something for your generosity. You might even want to pass along your gift to someone else who needs it!
Help Daisy and get public speaking coaching for yourself or a friend. :-)
Thank you in advance for all your support.
Many of you have followed the story of our adoption of Daisy and Tiger in December 2011.
After discovering these two siblings (on my Twitter feed) whose owner had died and left them homeless at the age of eight, we couldn't bear to see them end up in a shelter and separated. We had lost our last kitty in a long line of rescued kitties just five weeks earlier, and for the first time in 22 years, our house was silent and empty.
From Twitter one day to our home the next, that's how quickly we made our decision.
[Here they are hiding behind the toilet when we first brought them home.]
Tiger has a tentative and anxious personality; she's too shy to sit on our laps for long, but she will come close and walk in figure-eights while we pet her. She's extremely polite and will tap your arm if she would like some attention from you. She has a black triangle on her nose that makes her look a bit comical, although I don't think she realizes it. She loves to play, and is the closest thing we've had to a kitten in many years. We've been so grateful for Tiger's good health, except for the occasional hairball.
[On one of the rare occasions when Daisy hasn't slapped Tiger and made her run away. Probably happened right after this picture.]
Daisy is a lap kitty -- when she feels like it -- and will look deeply into our eyes while we rub her tummy and scratch her ears. And let's be honest -- she has a MEAN streak with her sister Tigerliger, growling and hissing every time she comes near. Occasionally we'll find them miraculously sleeping near each other and wonder how that even happened. She has a funny stubby tail and an oddly-shaped hind end we call "rocket butt;" her vet thought she might have been injured as a kitten. And she has one abnormally small kidney. So she came to us with a few physical quirks, but nothing we couldn't handle.
In November of 2012, we discovered that Daisy had been losing weight. Always a picky eater, it was hard to know from day to day if her lack of appetite was just her just being a brat, or something else. Her doctor suspected IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, and she was treated accordingly.
But after months of dietary changes, probiotics, tests, and inevitable exploratory surgery, she was diagnosed with low-grade lymphoma (a common progression of IBD, we now know). The good news was that this cancer is considered highly treatable and nonaggressive, and many cats have lengthy remissions.
After having lost two previous cats to high-grade lymphoma (as many of you know who gave much-needed emotional support during those times), which is much more aggressive, we felt hopeful that this was a "better" kind of cancer to deal with. Also, cancer treatment can be very expensive, and we had gone into debt trying to save our previous kitties. But we're not the kind of cat parents who give up without a fight. And if our cat is feeling good and her quality of life is still high, then we fight for her.
Daisy has done great for the last ten months. On a regimen of chemo, appetite stimulant, corticosteroids and other typical cancer drugs, plus special hypoallergenic food, she soon went into remission, gained back all the weight she had lost (plus more!), and was back to her old self. She had come home from surgery with a feeding tube, but after a few months, she decided she didn't want it anymore and removed it on her own (yuck!).
Low-grade lymphoma still requires maintenance through chemo, but we had finally gotten her down to just four medications, which was a huge improvement! It was such a relief that she was feeling good and her test results were good. We celebrated every day that this little monster was still here with us and feeling strong enough to growl and swat at Tiger just for sitting too close.
Then earlier this month, her appetite waned again and she became lethargic. Her meds didn't seem to be working anymore, so Daisy's internal medicine specialist ran tests and performed an ultrasound.
We couldn't have been more shocked. Daisy's low-grade lymphoma had transformed into lymphoblastic -- high-grade -- lymphoma.
As we've always done with our furbabies, we are prepared to do what it takes to get Daisy healthy again, until the time her quality of life declines and it's clear that she's not going to improve.
She's starting a new recommended chemo protocol this week that is supposed to have good results against aggressive lymphoma. And because Daisy has already been in remission once, it's likely she can go into remission again. She's still young-ish (at 11) and in good health besides her cancer. We have high hopes of seeing her in remission again soon, if we can afford to pay for her treatments.
Unfortunately, her treatment will cost somewhere around $1,500 just for one five-week cycle (cancer sucks for many reasons, including the fact that it costs a fortune to treat). This protocol requires 16 treatments over the course of 5 months -- or five five-week cycles. At a total cost of $7,500, this is much more than we are prepared to handle.
We have been using CARE Credit to cover Daisy's expenses since last year and have already paid off one $6,000 balance, but the rest of our credit line will be wiped out with just two treatment cycles and we don't know what we're going to do after that.
I'm also researching alternative and supplemental treatments, as there are a lot of case studies online on cats that have been helped by methods besides chemo.
We are asking for any and all forms of help while we go through these upcoming new treatments.
For example, if you have a resource for a great cancer supplement or other feline immune support (Daisy's been on Onco-Support for ten months), let us know. Daisy's doctor has to approve anything we come up with, but we're open to suggestions (we've even heard medical marijuana can help with nausea in cats and dogs -- who knew?).
And of course, we are asking for donations to help us meet her expenses. Donations will be used for her new chemo protocol and any other supplemental treatments that we believe will help her. Donations beyond what we need for treatment will be used to pay down the balance on the CARE Credit card.
Rudy and I don't have much we can offer you in return for donations, but I do have plenty of public speaking expertise to go around, so to each person who donates $100 or more, I can offer a 30-minute public speaking laser coaching call OR access to my 7-week online home study program, "Speak to Engage: 7-Step Shortcut to Public Speaking Success."
And of course, if you're not interested in public speaking, don't feel that you have to accept my gift in return for your donation. I just want to be able to offer something for your generosity. You might even want to pass along your gift to someone else who needs it!
Help Daisy and get public speaking coaching for yourself or a friend. :-)
Thank you in advance for all your support.
Organizer
Lisa Braithwaite
Organizer
Santa Barbara, CA
