Years ago, my gruff, "tough guy" uncle had a beloved pet named Isis. Isis was then a 12 year old Egyptian Mau cat, who had borne 2 litters of 2 kittens each. My uncle was so attached to these little animals that he had difficulty giving them away to the homes to which they were promised...which essentially ended his interest in breeding his pet. She was fixed after the second litter was placed and she enjoyed a life filled with many of the pleasures allotted to the felines who live among us--plenty of cat toys, the best home-made foods for her diet, warm fire places to lie near and sleeping beds placed close to the special humans in her life, plus a great big yard and garden, populated by songbirds and mice to keep her busy when things got boring indoors. My uncle doted on this pet, and except for a few "emergency" visits she made to the vet for which she was given treatments my uncle called "totally unnecessary" (and a limp she acquired from "jumping up after a bird) she was a sprightly, affectionate and fun loving cat who ate just a little too much now and again.
I often visited and stayed with my uncle during the year in which I was planning my wedding, travelling back and forth from the city where he lived. I had many opportunities to visit Isis during my stays. On one visit in particular, I found my uncle very upset and anxious because Isis wasn't responding to his calls for her, she wouldn't eat when she was fed, and he'd found hiding in spaces she had never been before. I knew from my own experience with cats that this is the kind of behaviour they exhibit when they are in the process of dying. I told my uncle that she could be very ill, so I promised him I would take a look at Isis to see if I could find what was wrong, and take her to the vet immediately.
Other than appearing to be completely unresponsive to touch, or food, or any other stimuli, she crouched and stared out, occasionally meowing in pain when she was picked up or moved. She did not strike out or bite, but her breath did have a "metallic", coppery scent. and she did seem to find touch on the left side of her body to be a little painful (she would flinch and meow when it was touched). I found no bites or cuts or other marks on her, but I did notice that her colouring seemed "a bit off", especially in her eyes and in her ears. If stroked her head, she would close her eyes; it was small comfort, and the only sign of response other than pain that she'd give me. My cousin, who is trained as a Shiatsu masseuse, affirmed that Isis' favourite thing whenever she had pain was a massage. The cat enjoyed them so much, she would often approach my cousin for a "massage" even if nothing was wrong with her. It was part of their interaction with each other.
When we got to the vet's office, and I gave the vet my uncle's name and address, he exclaimed, "I know this cat...I've seen her before!" He showed me the cat's computer record, which had 3 different entries marking previous visits during which the cat was given steroid shots for asthma. Isis had a history of difficult breathing, and on three previous occasions she was rushed into the vet's office for this shot. The vet had actually argued with my uncle in the past, as my uncle had insisted the shot be given, while the vet insisted that the cat's asthma required more intensified treatment measures. The Doctor's impatience with my uncle was clear, he had a hard time understanding my uncle's urgency about his cat, and he warned my uncle that his insistence on these shots would lead to the cat's premature death. With a good deal of anger in his words, the vet to Isis away to an examining room to see what was wrong "this time" and promised to tell me what he found.
When he returned with Isis, his diagnosis was cancer of the liver. He told me it was cruel to allow Isis to continue to suffer, as she was in a great deal of pain and needed to be put down. I asked him to explain why he believed this, and he demonstrated to me how he came to his conclusion. First, the cat was suffering from jaundice--the usual gold colour of her eyes looked "off" to me because what would normally be the white sclera had turned yellow. Her gums, paws, and insides of her ears, normally a pink colour, had also turned yellow. Isis lay still and unresponsive as he pressed and prodded at her sides, until she began to whine to be let go. He told me his diagnosis was based on just the physical exam--but he could be more thorough and take some tests if I wanted him to take the time to do this for her. I agreed this was a good idea, as it would give me the opportunity to tell my uncle about the diagnosis.
I asked him to tell me a bit more about her history of asthma, and he said all he could say was that she was rushed in in the past, and he had to deal with my uncle's insistence on the steroid shots, as well as my uncle's displeasure at their cost. I could tell I was dealing with a Vet who was didn't like my uncle and couldn't understand that my uncle's urgency was born out of real concern and fear for her wellbeing. I worried if his insistence that the cat be destroyed now wasn't partly related to his sustained anger. Before I left the cat for her tests, I told the vet I was a student of homeopathy, and I wanted to administer a remedy to the cat, just in case it might have some effect. His response was to tell me to "dose away, do whatever I wanted to do"...but warned me to consider the amount of pain the cat was in, and remember that she could not, at this point, be helped. "Your opinion," I thought to myself, and I left the cat with him to consult my books to find a remedy. I felt like I was up against some pretty big odds if she really did have an advanced liver cancer, but I didn't think it was such a good idea to give up on her chances without trying something.
That diagnosis was quite intimidating, I have to admit. I had no idea how I would organise the information I had about Isis, or where to start looking in the repertory for her trouble. Nothing seemed to stand out as "characteristic"...and since the "cancer" had already progressed far enough to bring about her instinctual dying behaviour, I didn't feel I could find anything characteristic about her case. I decided I didn't know, for certain, that she did have cancer at all: and to just go on what I knew with certainty about her case. The certainties:
1)asthma in the past;
2)steroid treatment, which would have compromised the liver
3)jaundice--indicating liver dysfunction and blood problems
4)a limp on her left hind leg, which my uncle believes came from a climbing/jumping injury that must have injured the bone, but which may have been some referred pain from internal organ damage.
5)a love of massage, or being physically stroked or touched. It was the one stimulus which brought a minor, "individual" response, which was characteristic to some degree. This is the characteristic that our repertories refer to as the "desire to be magnetized".
Looking up jaundice in the repertory gave me a moderately sized rubric (Skin, discolouration, yellow, jaundice, icterus;)...and further along, a rubric for jaundice as a concommitant symptom, showing only one remedy: phosphorus. Since the jaundice was very likely accompanied by cancer (or at least some illness which was bringing about the end of Isis' life), I could consider this small rubric.
Phosphorus is also listed under the rubrics Respiration, asthmatic (quite a large rubric) as well as Respiration, difficult. I asked my uncle when Isis's breathing difficulties would come up, and he recalled that they always started when he and my aunt would come home from work--usually when they were preparing or eating dinner, or shortly afterward. That would be in the early evening--before 9pm or so, a time modality which also fit in well with the remedy. For the phosphorus patient, all symptoms become worse at night.
There was little to go on for a mental emotional state, though I did know that much of the instinctual dying behaviour of cats is precipitated by fear and self-protection: their fear of predators, more specifically, their fear of being attacked while vulnerable motivates their desire to hide, to make themselves small in stature, to stop eating and drinking (so they leave no feces or urine traces by which other animals can detect them) and stop responding to stimuli around them. Its an incredibly fearful state and not characteristic of most cats at all when they're well. I decided on the phosphorus as the first remedy to try, and I took some support from the fact that it's a remedy often used in euthanasia, particularly when this fearful and anxious mental state is present. I felt that if I couldn't help Isis get better, death by phosphorus would be far less jarring than death by injection at the hands of the vet, and the remedy would alleviate some of her fearfulness. So I went back to the vet's and had him bring Isis out. In front of him, I gave Isis a dose of Phosphorus 30c, (it was the one vial of phosphorus available anywhere in my uncle's neighbourhood, so I took what I could get in terms of potencies) and hoped for the best while the vet shrugged as I slipped the pillules into her mouth.
The vet assured me that he would continue his tests and meet with me later on that evening to discuss her cancer: then we would put her down. I decided I would just bring her home, if that was all right with him; I told him I knew she may not get better and that I would be returning to him to put her down, if the remedy I gave didn't work, and if euthanasia was required. The vet warned me again that she was in great pain and my uncle would just be cruel to keep her alive, but I knew my uncle would be devastated to learn of his intentions to just put her down then and there. I told my uncle the diagnosis, told him I'd given her some medicine of my own, and got ready to drive home. I asked my uncle to give me a call the next day if he saw any changes, better or worse, in her case. There was no reason to be cocky about the expected results, but I was concerned that my uncle would be so infuriated with the vet's suggested treatment the two of them might end up in another battle of words...so I decided to give Isis and my uncle some time. I'd bring up the awful option only if there was no other alternative left.
Isis got better.
The next day, I heard that Isis' appetite returned, and the clarity was restored to her eyes and skin. After two days, Isis used the litter box again and had begun to want to go outside to run around. She was observant and alert while outdoors, preferring to walk around and sit in the shade or follow my uncle around as he tended his garden...and it was in watching her moving that he noticed her long-standing "limp" had disappeared. She did, however, have a funny new habit of licking the paving stones on the patio--something we all thought strange. "Pica!", I thought, since it was the first time I was actually seeing that symptom in a patient. Isis needed the nutrients she was getting from the clay and sand she was eating! Immediately thought about looking up all the Pica remedies, thought about redosing with the phosphorus, but the behaviour didn't last very long and then, once again, her picture changed.
About a week later, my uncle and aunt called to tell me that Isis was like a totally different cat--energetic, bouncy, affectionate again. But, they noted, she was developing a strange swelling under her lower jaw--did I know anything about what that was? They described her symptoms over the next few days as "strange and bizarre", as Isis developed what looked like a huge blister under her chin, which discharged a watery, whitish fluid tinged slightly with blood. They were concerned, so I told my uncle I would look for another remedy, but when I asked him about Isis's pain from her symptoms, he said she wasn't experiencing any--she just had this unsightly bulge under there, some of the hairs were falling off on the skin covering the bulge, it was really ugly but she was not bothered by it and ate and played with much more vigour than she had in a long time. Both he and my aunt felt compelled to follow her around with a washcloth, though, and you can imagine neither were thrilled with that part of her recovery.
I considered "waiting it out"--that hardest thing to do in homeopathy, especially when the symptoms are so disturbing (and yet very much the kind of symptoms that would indicate some movement towards cure). I would call my uncle to talk about the cat, but I couldn't come out to see him that week and there was no way to get any remedy to him where he was, so it wasn't like I had any option except to wait. I never did give another remedy or redose. Whatever it was that was happening came and went over the course of a week. As long as they kept her chin clean, and left her to her own devices, Isis was "putting up with" the new symptom well. It completely resolved in a few days' time, and she was as good as she always was.
Early this past summer, at the age of 17, Isis passed away of old age. She lived for 5 years after her "terminal" cancer was diagnosed, and never suffered another asthma attack or limp as a result of her adventures again; nor was she ever seen licking the patio stones again, or suffering from the skin ailment which developed after the phosphorus was given. I never even needed to give her another dose of the phos 30c, or of any other remedy--and now, looking back on the case, Isis became the best instructor for me, on that vital, tortuous lesson--waiting--especially since it would have been so easy for me to panic over what were essentially signs of increased health, awful as they were.
Isis makes me consider one other thing: I was a complete novice in the use of homeopathic medicine, just barely beginning that last year of my in-class studies as a homeopath, and yet the remedy was fairly easy to select given the limited symptoms I had to go on. The pathology in the case had progressed enough that death was imminent, and yet once the remedy was given, Isis was easily back on her way towards fully regained health. I'm still not 100% sold on the cancer diagnosis, but if I were, I would wonder why we all seem to think of this disease as something insurmountable. Isis was like a lot of our patients who seek us out for treatment: she was suffering in part from the (side) effects of repeatedly used prescription drugs, but the fact that no one had attempted to treat her with chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery worked to her benefit. These treatments might temporarily save her life but would also remove vital tissue from her body. Of course, once the body's own structure and self-healing mechanisms become altered, or hindered, or suppressed by standard cancer treatments, obstacles to complete cure are created, and these make treating cancer in human patients very difficult to do, homeopathically. I wonder just how much we could do for our patients, as homeopaths, if we could just see them before they've tried every other option in conventional medicine first.
originally published in Hpathy Ezine, January 2004
