1/6/22 – A few days ago I received the following from a very caring man who fell in love with a stray cat who kept appearing on his porch shortly after his family moved in to their new home:”Iggy is approximately 13-15 years old I’d say, he’s a black cat and starting to get some white mixed in from age. He’s a funny guy, loves just hanging out and being lazy. We adopted him when we moved into our new place two months ago. He was living outside and he came in when I opened the door for him — like he belonged here. None of the neighbors recognized him so we just kept him since it was cold and he seemed to have been outside for a while. He’s house trained and acts like an indoor cat, so he fit right in. He’s been fine up until a few weeks ago when he stopped eating his regular dry food. I thought he was just being finicky, so I tried a few new brands and even switched to wet, but finally he started losing weight and would only lick the gravy off the wet food. I started feeding him pate with a syringe last week. He seems like he’s in ok spirits, but he definitely is not well, and very low energy for him and you can see he lost weight.”

We arranged for Iggy to quickly see one of our partner vets. X-rays were performed of Iggy’s abdomen and the doctor saw what she believes is a small tumor around the area where his small and large intestines meet. It looked a little bigger than a golf ball. Iggy also had blood work done and it showed some raised levels that could indicate cancer. The doctor also saw where Iggy was constipated and took care of that along with giving him some fluids. The doctor said that surgery was possible but if it was cancer (which she felt most likely because of its location), the surgery would only give Iggy a possible 6 months to a year. For now the family will be keeping Iggy as comfortable as possible. After his doctor visit he’s been resting with the family’s daughter whom he has loves. Iggy’s rescuers and new family tell me that he is a very sweet guy and that they have truly fallen in love with him. I advised Sean to keep me informed in case there was anything we could do for this poor guy who may have been thrown into the wild after his family moved from that particular home. I am forever thankful that animals like Iggy will not meet a terrible death on the streets but instead will be loved and cared for in their final days. Please remember this family and Iggy in your prayers tonight. – diana.