ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ORCHARD PARK, N.Y.
SOURCE: Associated Press
A NEW YORK VETERINARIAN insisted the Richmond couple adopt the stray cat that supplied the organ.
One cat needed a kidney. Another cat needed a home.
Both cats got what they needed, thanks to a suburban Buffalo veterinarian and a cat-loving Virginia couple.
Smokey's life was threatened by kidney failure until Dr. Ross Lirtzman gave him a new kidney in a 41/2-hour operation.
Lirtzman, of the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, had one condition before he agreed to the April 11 transplant: that Smokey's owners also adopt the donor cat.
The donor, a stray cat taken in by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, faced being put to death if no one adopted him.
``I have never, and will never, sacrifice a healthy animal for the life of another animal,'' Lirtzman told the Buffalo News. ``We want to give them both a chance for having a normal quality life.''
Now, Smokey, with his three kidneys, and the donor cat, with only one, are living together in Richmond, Va. - sharing a more positive future than they faced a month ago.
Only about 115 kidney transplants have been performed on cats, and the Orchard Park facility is one of only four or five performing them in this country.
The first kidney transplant on a cat was performed in 1984 at the University of California at Davis. The success rate has been about 70 percent in healthy candidates. So far, Smokey, who returned home this past week, has made acceptable progress in his recovery.
Sandy and T. Peyton Carr of Richmond said they never hesitated once they learned about Lirtzman and the possibility of a kidney transplant for Smokey. They now have 13 cats.
The Carrs paid the entire cost of the surgery and hospitalization, roughly $5,000. They named the buff-colored donor cat Buffalo.
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