LOVIN’ THAT FELINE
No expense spared on lion’s cancer treatment
● While a lion named Chaos battles cancer, it’s a “mother’s love” that could mean the difference between life and death.
The hulking predator has become a familiar sight in the oncology wing of Pretoria’s Mediclinic Muelmed, while he undergoes ground-breaking radiation therapy, normally the preserve of human patients.
As he’s been moved between his enclosure at Midrand’s Lory Park Zoo and the sanitised corridors of the oncology suite, zoo curator Matty van Eck — the woman who reared him from a cub — has been at his side.
The treatment plan, which will see 16year-old Chaos sedated and transported to the hospital once a week for a month, is the first of its kind and follows the discovery of cancerous growths on his nose last month.
His transport to hospital is a mammoth effort, closely co-ordinated between zookeepers, veterinarians and doctors.
On Wednesday, moments after the big cat had been darted and put onto a steel gurney, Van Eck stood stoic, holding a massive paw in her hand.
“It feels like there is thunder in my chest. It is hard for me because every time we put him under, there is a chance he won’t wake up. It hurts to see him like this,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.
But the cancer is in the early stages. “And with radiation there is a real possibility that we can stop [it] and save him, so that is absolutely what we will do.”
She said they had bought Chaos from a breeder when he was just nine days old, and that from the day he’d arrived, he had become part of their family.
“There are very few animals that we share that kind of connection with. He is like my son. He was one of our first cats and he is a very special boy. I could tell you stories about him that would make him so embarrassed,” she said.
Van Eck added that nothing would stop her from trying to save her “son”.
“Our only other option was euthanasia, and that was never a choice,” she said.
She said the treatment was likely to cost more than R50,000. “But we didn’t flinch. A lion in the wild has a life expectancy of 10 years and, if all goes well with this treatment, he could live to 22.”
Though the list of other animals treated at the facility includes dogs, cats, a cheetah, a leopard and a chicken, lead veterinarian Dr Katja Koeppel, of the University of Pretoria, said this course of treatment had never been attempted before.
“He had two horrible lesions on his nose which proved to be cancerous. Because they are on the nose they can’t be removed surgically … He is still wild. We would never be able to clean his nose daily as we would need to, he wouldn’t let me,” she said.
Koeppel described the treatment as “a massive undertaking”.
This is partly because he is so big. “Getting a human in the machine is easy, they just walk in and out and lie still for a couple of minutes while listening to music. Chaos is very different,” she said.
Radiation oncologist Dr Ingo de Mûelenaere agreed that Chaos’s bulk provided their biggest challenge.
“Because of his size and weight, he won’t fit on the table that moves up and down, so we had to treat him on a trolley.”
He said that Chaos had been wheeled through a back passage into the treatment suite so as not to alarm the human patients.
“It’s too soon to predict the outcome. It’s a sun-induced skin cancer and we expect a 90% chance of a cure in humans. In animals we don’t have comprehensive data, but it looks positive,” he said.
Koeppel said their success so far — Chaos’s lesions had shrunk by a third after the first treatment — had been at the cost of her own relationship with the lion.
“He hates me. I put a dart in his butt and then I’m the first person he sees when he wakes up in an unfamiliar place. But for this good cause, I shall be the villain.”