Cancer Stories: The Art Of Oncology

Listen to ASCO’s Journal of Clinical Oncology essay, “Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life” by Dr. Fumiko Chino, Radiation Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.. The essay is followed by an interview with Chino and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. Chino describes how she became an unlikely cat owner and how her "pet therapy" allowed her to move forward with life as a widow. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Pet Therapy: How the Cat I Never Wanted Saved My Life, by Fumiko Chino  My husband and I adopted our cat, Franklin, on a cold November day. It was one of the last days that Andrew felt well enough to leave the house to go anywhere other than to chemotherapy or a doctor’s appointment. Our news at these appointments had shifted toward the negative, with disease progression on scans, low blood counts, and fluid accumulating in places it shouldn’t be. After a year of aggressive treatment, his body was tiring out, and treatment options were becoming limited. Andrew had always wanted a cat, but I was