HI All,

The most feedback I have received from any of my newsletters was from the one about pets with skin cancer so I thought that you may find this interesting.

Pet parrot costs owner $100,000 in skin cancer treatment then dies   

It happens all too often, a 42-year-old is struck down by cancer despite a year of round-the-clock care and a course of chemotherapy costing some $100,000.The bit that is perhaps less common is that we are talking about a parrot called Areba.

Owner Anne Lowery thought nothing of shelling out the huge sum to pay for veterinary care for her companion of 30 years. ‘When the doctors at Tampa told me that Areba had skin cancer, they gave her only two months to live,’ said Ms Lowery, who takes in rescue animals and owns 11 other parrots. ‘As it turned out we got an extra nine months with Areba and the staff there ended up loving her as much as I did,’ she added. ‘I would visit her every day and at times I would spend up to five nights at the hospital with her,’ said the income tax specialist.  

Areba, a Wagler’s Conure, was diagnosed with skin cancer in February last year after Ms Lowery noticed a strange lesion on her beak. She had to brave dozens of weekly chemotherapy injections. She recovered from the ordeal on Tuesday but sadly died on Wednesday.

‘Parrots such as Areba are extremely drug resistant to chemo, so to get the right dosage is tough,’ said Dr Teresa Lightfoot, who treated Areba at Florida Veterinary Specialists. ‘We had to inject the chemo straight into the lesion, for which she had to be sedated,’ she added. ‘However, we believe that we improved her quality of life and of course gave her and her mom, Anne, a lot more time together,’ said Dr Lightfoot.

Ms Lowery added: 'It was always clear this was borrowed time.'

Hope you found this as interesting as I did.

Please email me at ian.katz@southernsun.com.au with any suggestions about how I can improve this communication.  

Regards Dr Ian Katz, Director.