The Tale of the Lifesaving Clinic Cat

By Scott Lackenby | Dated December 7, 2016

Hey peeps! How are you all? I’m still recovering from my big weekend. It was so exciting meeting Santa and chatting to everyone who bought their pets up to have a photo with the man in red. Thank you again to everyone who came. It was a fantastic day. I haven’t done the sums yet to see how much we have raised for Denise @ Paws yet. We are still selling raffle tickets and goody bags until the 19th December , so if you didn’t get a chance to come on Saturday you can still help us help Denise @ Paws.

As you can probably tell from the title of this week’s post, I have been an especially good clinic cat and I am now certain to be getting everything on my Santa list. But before I tell you about my amazing selfless act, you’ll need to know a little about the back story. Way back before I became an official member of the GVH team, there were a few of the GVH humans who weren’t convinced a clinic cat was a good idea. But the humans on Team Joey had a winning argument. If I stayed, I could be a live in blood donor. A huge positive for any clinic! So, the paperwork was finalized and I was an official part of the GVH team. Then they checked my blood type. You see, it’s super important that when cats receive a blood transfusion that they receive compatible blood. Now, the majority of cats have A type blood, so that’s the ideal type for a blood donating clinic cat. And guess what type my life saving blood is? Yep, you guessed it, I’m type B!! So basically useless as a blood donor!! But the paperwork was already filed so GVH was stuck with me!

For the past 4 1/2 years, I’ve been living an amazing life as a pampered clinic cat, never having to fulfil the most important part of my job description. Well, that was until we had a call from our good friends at NEVS, Northside Emergency Veterinary Services, at Terrey Hills. They needed an urgent blood donation for a critically ill cat who just happened to be type B. So guess who went on a drive to Terrey Hills, gave blood AND saved the life of the critically ill cat? Yep, me!! So I am now officially a lifesaver!

Dr John was pretty proud of me for agreeing to be a blood donor

Who was this lucky cat who received the amazing restorative powers of my blood? Well, I don’t know too much about her, she was too sick for cat chat. What I do know is that her name is Misty and she is 16years old. She was taken to her local Vet with hind limb weakness. On examination, they found a tick, so she was treated with tick serum and given the on trend “tick hair cut”. The next day, Misty collapsed so was rushed to NEVS where a blood test revealed she was dangerously anaemic. And that’s where I enter the story. Don’t tell too many people, but it actually felt good to do a good deed for someone.  It’s also a good reminder that Vets are always in need of a list of pets to be blood donors in the event of an emergency. Even those with magical rare blood like me. To find out more about listing your pet on the blood donor registry at GVH, please just give my lovely Reception Nurses a call.

Well, better go. I’m sure once this is posted there’ll be a line of people waiting for an autograph from me, seeing’s how I’m an official lifesaver and all. Meows for now, love Joey the lifesaver xox