Cinco

Caregiver's Name
Tricia Dewey

Please include a paragraph that tells voters something fun or interesting about the cat(s) and other animals in the photo. Which cat is diabetic? Is one or more a DCIN rescue? How long have the animals been a part of your family? Give some interesting information about the animal(s) in the photo that will encourage others to vote for your photo.
Cinco was a neighborhood stray that took up residence on our front doormat in October of 2010. I began feeding him and trying to get him comfortable with me. We already had four cats, so my husband called him "Number Five", but I said Cinco was a better name. By July he was living in our backyard and coming when I called. I took him to the vet to get shots, etc. and we discovered he was diabetic. He got DKA and we almost lost him. We kept him in the garage due to Harvey's attitude about other cats. Once we found FDMB and learned how to treat his FD properly, Cinco turned a corner, and in a couple of months he was OTJ. By then we had convinced Harvey to let him move into the house. He had the best manners of any cat I've ever had, waiting patiently for his food while I fed the others and never scratching the furniture or fussing with the other cats.

A little over a year later, Cinco fell out of remission. He was diagnosed with Bartonella and Glaucoma. He was completely blind. There was a tumor behind his right eye. It and the eye were removed and ocular lymphoma was diagnosed. We decided against chemo, as his FD was stable and the Oncologist saw no signs of cancer. The left eye was removed a few months later due to the Glaucoma. Unfortunately, Cinco's cancer returned the next year, in his forehead. We treated it with surgery and radiation and got the all clear. Then, five months later, it came back. We began chemotherapy, but it was just too much for Cinco. He had used up all of his nine lives, so I kept a promise I'd made when we first took him in - I would never let him suffer again. We set him free on April 16, 2016.

We learned so much from Cinco, about FD, cancer, and cats in general, but mostly about love. We only had him for five years, but he changed our lives forever.