Over the past 7 years I have tried to be a guardian angel to countless cats, devoting seven years to their rescue and care as Romeo’s Cat Rescue . Now my own beloved cat, is in the fight for her life. Recently Opal had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer – nasal lymphoma – that has extended into her brain. The only hope she had came in a form of an advanced radiation therapy. Opal and I drove from Melbourne to Sydney and spent 3 weeks there whilst Opal completed 10 fractions of 4.2 Gray radiation over 10 days.
Opal bravely completed her radiation therapy at SASH in Sydney in 17th November 2023. We are very hopeful that when we do our follow up CT or MRI in January we will see a further drastic reduction in size or even better a complete remission. The staff at SASH were amazing and as you can see by these photos Opal was in the very best hands.
Here is the link for Romeo’s Cat Rescue Page on Facebook
Opal with her wonderful Dr Elias Gumple – a radiation/oncology specialist at SASH, next to her radiation machine called “Sparky”
Opal on her daily walk:
Opal inside the radiation machine during her treatment:
Opal in recovery after one of her radiation sessions:
Opal with “Sparky” – performing an equipment quality check 😀
Please see CT scans below to see how much her tumour has shrunk over the 2 weeks if radiation. The whole team is very happy with Opal’s progress and we all keep our fingers and toes crossed that the tumour keeps responding and shrinking over the next three months (this is how long it takes to see the final effect of the radiation treatment).
Opal is starting to experience the short term side effects of her treatment. Fir a few days she had been feeling off, not eating, hiding in the dark places a lot. The doctors say these are normal and expected side effects from the radiation and they may last for a few weeks. For about a week Opal needed to be syringe fed as she had lost over 700 grams a few times a day and she was not eating. However, she was still enjoying her daily walkies!
Now that we are back home, Opal has gained weight and is doing wonderfully. Opal has an appointment with the oncologist at VRH Dandenong to discuss further treatment with chemo.
Opal’s tumor before (within the yellow lines):
Opal’s tumour after 10 days of radiation treatment:
Before:
After:
Opal’s Graduation:
