Returning a 'Biggie' favor

SANDPOINT — Not many people would consider a $3,800 surgery for a 12-year-old cat, but to local resident Chris Cantrella, he’s simply returning a favor.

After all, the feline in question saved his life eight years ago.

Cantrella’s job as a journeyman welder and repairman for complicated facilities like nuclear reactors and oil refineries frequently keeps him on the road. Although the compensation is great, the many days away from home can be lonely. But in past years, he’s had a traveling companion in the form of his treasured cat, Biggie. The two have been inseparable regardless of work or play.

“I remember one time on the job, another worker said, ‘Look at this guy. He brought his cat with him?’” Cantrella said. “Then the foreman turned to the guy giving me a hard time and said, ‘Hey, aren’t you on your fourth divorce?’”

That close connection has been going strong ever since 2002. At the time, Cantrella was staying in the Portland, Ore., area due to a lack of work in Idaho.

One particularly rough work day under a hot summer sun left him dehydrated and suffering from a minor head injury. When he returned home, he drank two beers rather than the water his body needed. Then he took a medication prescribed to treat his chronic back pain.

“All those different factors built up throughout the day, but it was the medication that did me in,” Cantrella said.

Due to the state of his body and the alcohol in his system, Cantrella suffered a violent reaction to the pills. He suffered serious heart failure and collapsed.

“It seemed like a bad dream,” he said. “I couldn’t move my extremities at all. I couldn’t yell, scream or anything.”

That’s when Biggie showed up.

“You know how you hear about cats in nursing homes waiting outside the door of someone who’s dying?” Cantrella said. “I think this was something like that. They’re really almost like little angels in a way.”

But this was no passive, observant pet. Biggie sprang into action, jumping on Cantrella’s chest, clawing and licking his hair and biting his cheek whenever he started losing consciousness. When Cantrella’s daughter found him a half-hour later, he was in critical condition and bleeding from his cheek but awake and alive.

“I tell you, I came within my last two beats. I was pretty close to it,” he said. “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for that cat.”

The tables turned a few months ago when Biggie suffered a heart attack of his own. Cantrella always knew that the big white cat had a heart murmur but didn’t realize its seriousness.

Fortunately, Biggie survived the ordeal, and Cantrella brought him to Sandpoint veterinarian Mark Fineman. He concluded that Biggie’s troubles stemmed from fluid collecting around his heart.

“What we had to do was pull fluid from his chest to stabilize him,” Fineman said.

To that end, Fineman and Cantrella sent Biggie to an animal hospital at the Washington State University. With the advanced equipment available at the facility, Biggie underwent treatment to take care of the fluid while receiving plenty of attention from veterinary students.

The treatment got Biggie back on his feet but didn’t completely solve his health problems. To ensure his continued health, the cat will require a $3,800 heart surgery to widen the heart valve that sends blood flow toward the lungs.

“It’s a really rare condition to see in a cat,” Fineman said.

The surgery will involve feeding a catheter with an inflatable tip directly into the valve. Once in position, the surgeon inflates the tip to physically correct the malfunctioning valve.

Despite the expense involved and the fact that Biggie has already lived 12 years of an expected 15 year life span, he expects that he’ll have the surgery performed. To him, the cat isn’t a replaceable pet.

“This is just not a good time for me to have to hold him while he gets a shot that will put him to sleep,” he said.

And given the history that the two share, that’s not at all surprising.

“It’s a perfect example of what we vets call the human-animal bond,” Fineman said. “To me, their story made the experience that much more meaningful.”