Reunited After 11 Years: Aid Mischa's Healing

Laura Christensen is organizing this fundraiser.

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We had an old family member return to us after 11 years! In September I received an email and text saying my cat was found. I quickly checked on our cats and as they were all fine, I thought perhaps it was either spam, a mistake or even a scam. When I received another email with the name of the cat, I was floored. It turns out that our cat missing over 10 YEARS ago had been found.

In 2013 we had moved to a new house. We had a cat previously but he passed away the year before. Our family decided we were ready for new cat. We knew this time we wanted to either adopt an adult or juvenile cat knowing that older cats are harder to adopt. I looked online at the Best Friends Animal Society in Salt Lake and saw a beautiful blue grey cat named "Misty". I called and made an appointment to see her and it was love for me. I picked her up and brought her home. We had her fixed, vaccinated and chipped. We also renamed her Mischa as the shelter told us she was a Russian Blue. Things were just fine.

Less than a year later, one of our boys had left the back door open and she was gone. We looked around our neighborhood to try to find her, we tried to see if there had been any accidents and the like but still had no idea where she was. We expected a call from our local county animal shelter saying she was found but never heard back. We wondered if maybe she had a previous family she was attached to and went back home.

Fast forward to now. Once I got that call I could not believe it. I called my husband and he couldn't believe either. I called our local county shelter and asked what we should do. They recommended that she stay there for a few days just in case some other family had taken her in so they could get her back. We agreed. Not knowing at the moment how bad her condition was, I would have gotten her that day. After 5 days we picked her up. She was seriously emaciated. She had an open wound on her upper leg. She was flea ridden and matted. We took her to our vet the next day. After examining her, they told us that they may recommend putting her down. The vet and I talked, a decided on doing some tests and going from there. The vet also said that the open wound was not actually wound but was a tumor. A tumor that was most likely cancer.

Her first test came surprisingly well, with no major kidney or urinary function issues. From there we did a chest x-ray to determine if the cancer had spread. It turned out that it had not, so we had the tumor removed. After surgery we brought her home to recover.

Today she is fully recovered and is back as a member of our family. Our current cats are getting used to her and while she is not as fast as the other cats, she gets along just fine.

We are hoping to cover our vet bills which are several thousand dollars. Anything over that will go back to the Best Friends Animal Society of Salt Lake City for all the good work they do.

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