by Taylor MacHenry

My boy Russell has been my dearest and best little buddy since the spring of 2010, along with his twin brother, Rocky, who died in 2015. That broke my heart, but I survived. Rusty and I still had each other.

These days Rusty’s doing a slow circle around life’s drain. He’s got lymphoma, the most common cancer in cats. That and kidney failure are what takes cats in most cases, and they do not go gently into that good night. Neither do I, because my love for these perfect, sinless little souls lives in my heart forever.

Russell imprinted on my heart when he was just a few weeks old.

He and his twin brother Rocky had gotten thrown out like trash.

I found them clinging to the ground, way too young to be able to survive without their mother. But some people regard cats as rubbish.

They do not neuter their cats, and instead of treating them like pets they put them in the barn to keep down the rodent populations. And the cats banished to the barn, if they survive, have kittens. Lots and lots of kittens. Thus a hive of feral cats grows from the neglected, rejected pets.

When the feline population grows into a problem, the thoughtless people who regard cats as trash, throw away the kittens. Thus Rocky and his brother Russell wound up that beautiful day in June 2010 on a dirt road that leads towards a barn that anyone rarely visits.

I saw the two babies when I was hauling hay and feed for my horses. Just a flash in the corner of my eye. A yellow fur ball on a dirt road rut. Two tiny kittens so small that at first I thought it was a single body.

But as I got closer, I saw two little heads wobbling, trying to look around, scared to death, abandoned. They would certainly die.

I scooped up both babies together in one hand. So tiny and so scared. And I took them home with me, fed them and nurtured them and they implanted in my soul forever and ever.

Rocky died when he and Rusty were five. A strange illness. Something wrong with his pancreas.

We took out all the stops trying to save Rocky. Cost did not slow us down. Rusty and all of us in the family loved Rocky. But even the best veterinarians sometimes lose their most hard-fought battles for a cat’s life.

We buried Rocky in our little pet eternal resting area beneath a blue Colorado spruce tree and planted wild Chamomile over the head of his grave. It blooms late summer each year with a spray of daisy-looking white and yellow flowers.

When Russell goes to Heaven, we will bury his sweet body by his dear brother Rocky, and put more wild Chamomile flowers over him too.

This spring we noticed Russell losing weight. He had some bad teeth so we thought he just needed to get the faulty ones out. After the dental surgery he came home a different cat. Not frisky and playful and always wanting to be near us, but really tired. The stress of the surgery took a lot out of him and probably triggered the lymphoma lurking within him to amp up.

We looked hard at what was going on. Our family veterinarian is our friend for more than 20 years and he helped us search for answers, and referred other specialists. He warned us of the most common problem, lymphoma. The symptoms of sudden weight loss, no appetite and lethargy, along with stomach ache and Russell not being able to clear his bowels held up a host of red flags.

So, after ultrasound exams and more tests, we concluded to a fair certainty that he has cancer.

We won’t put him in surgery because the ordeal poses too much stress on his now frail body, and his life would become terrible. He would suffer.

So we give him Prednisolone, a steroid that has cancer fighting elements that can reduce tumor growth and kills cancer cells. With this we give him antacid and anti-nausea medications, plus appetite stimulants. Also, we give him Gabapentin twice daily for pain and stress relief.

With this we have added a vitamin B-12 injection into the IV line when we flush him subcutaneously every few days with 150 milliliters of Ringer’s Lactate. Between the fluid infusions we also give him oral vitamin B complex as well as vitamins C, D, A and E.

Atop that we also give Rusty the highest quality and most pure, full-spectrum CBD oil available, and it is specially made for cats and dogs by a group near Denver who scientifically research and develop medicines made from hemp and cannabis.

This CBD oil is rigorously tested by independent scientific laboratories to ensure that the quality, molar densities and purity of the CBD oil are consistent with the same standards required of any other medication. The CBD oil producers are also part of an FDA program that hopes to find beneficial medicines from hemp and other cannabis family plants for people and animals.

I have an oncologist friend whose patients now take CBD oil with good results, helping them fight cancer. And he told me about the people here in Colorado, where I purchased Russell’s CBD oil.

The oil is expensive. You can buy much cheaper CBD on Amazon. But those products are not full-spectrum CBD nor do they get tested for purity and consistency, nor for a high standard of quality. Those additional steps cost money, so the drug that I buy is higher priced. But with it I have confidence that each dose is exactly the precise molar density per milliliter that the cat needs consistently each day. Just like any patented medicine approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human or animal uses and controlled by prescription.

I even got some CBD for me to take to see if it helps with my disabilities that I suffer today from my Marine Corps service. Sleep problems from PTSD and pain issues from several old injuries to include my reconstructed lower spine, necessary in 2018 after a bad landing I suffered in 1983 that fractured three vertebrae along with giving me a bad knee and ankle sprain. The bad knee and ankle also remain on my list of Veteran Disabilities.

This CBD oils that Russell and I take have no THC in them, but they do have the important Cannabidiol drugs that relieve pain, relieve stress, and help bring on sleep at night. Studies currently suggest that CBD can reduce cancer cells. These are not internet claims by unscientific blogs or chat forums, but real scientific studies now ongoing.

This gives us hope that the combined medical care that we and our vet are providing Rusty will give him a little more time with us and allow him to enjoy a better quality of life than many pets get. Many pet “owners” (we don’t own pets here but include them in our family) will have their pet euthanized at the first moment that cancer is diagnosed. It’s usually an economic decision rationalized that it was best for the cat. But not in our house nor at the hands of our veterinarian who will only euthanize a pet when it is the ethically and morally correct thing to do for the genuine best interests of the pet.

For now, we in our household do all that we can to not just love Russell but to make sure he feels our love. And that’s the way it should always be for every pet in every home.

Rusty and our other pets are important and deeply loved members of our family.