Three Faith-Filled Years

Three years ago today, our calico Faith was diagnosed with small cell lymphoma.

Side note: I took this photo of Faith (and the last two at the bottom) right before I posted this blog. The rest are from various times of her illness.

OK, now onto the blog!

At the time of her diagnosis, Faith was sick, weak, and recovering from nearly a weeklong hospital stay, aspiration pneumonia, the insertion of a feeding tube (which we never used, only flushed daily for several months), and rapid weight loss.

We were told she could live two years with cancer treatments if she tolerated them well. In the meantime, she went on palliative care: prednisolone, Vitamin B12, and Cerenia for nausea as needed, as well as two antibiotics.

Faith finished the antibiotics and then went back on a third when her feeding tube became infected.

As Faith recovered, we decided to forgo treatment and leave her on palliative care for several reasons.

1. All options of treatment were too expensive for us to consider - plus the cost of treating Faith for side effects. 

2. The recent illness had so traumatized Faith (who already had panic attacks during routine veterinarian check-ups) that we didn't want the rest of her life to be a cycle of chemotherapy, side effects, and trips to the vet for lots of blood draws and side effect treatments. So even if we had unlimited funds, we still would not have chosen cancer treatments.

3. Faith's quality of life was returning, and we wanted to keep it that way. We wanted good days (even if few in number) than lots of potentially miserable days.

I researched her cancer and learned a few things.

1. The range for life expectancy with treatment was one to three years.

2. The range for life expectancy with palliative care was two to three months.

3. I found one cat in the literature who lived a year on palliative care alone.

Naturally, we did not expect Faith to live through the summer.

But when she did, we did not expect Faith to see the holidays - or 2023. But she did.

We repeated these mantras in 2023, 2024, and at the beginning of 2025.

She's long lost the bloated steroid look and pounds.

Today, she's slightly 9.8 pounds.

We added Gabapentin for arthritis eighteen months ago. The Cerenia became a daily medication six months ago. Faith also gets an occasional Zofran. By upping her nausea medication, she really doesn't get dehydrated anymore.

Now she does look a little thin.

But she's also lost muscle mass because we have a corgi in the house, so she stays upstairs. It's been five months since she's ran up and down the stairs.

Faith also looks a little tired some days.

But she's now a seventeen-year-old cat with cancer. According to several cat sites. that makes Faith eight-four years old. Heck, if I were eighty-four with cancer, I'd look tired, too.

Faith's oncologist said Faith's case is unusual. They do have one cat in the practice that's lived seven years (so far) with small cell lymphoma. But he's a much younger cat, and he did have two years of chemotherapy, too.

How to celebrate?

Well, right now she's more interested in all the helicopters that have been flying overhead for the last few hours than in anything I can offer her.

What about treats?

She already gets all the treats she wants, so nothing special in that regard.

But maybe some extra hugs and pets today are in order - and gratefulness to God for three Faith-filled years.