Spokane woman willing to fight rare disease to the end
Mar 8, 2017, 9:21 AM | Updated: 1:21 pm
Cat Davis' body is hardening on the inside and outside due to a disease called Scleroderma. (Cat Davis)
(Cat Davis)
There are walks, runs, auctions and GoFundMe’s for every cause under the sun, and they’re all vying for your money. That, perhaps, makes it even more difficult to get people to pay attention to Scleroderma, a disease that hardens organs to the texture of leather and has no cure.
But there is Cat Davis.
I met Cat four years ago while working for KXLY TV in Spokane when the first attempt to save her life launched. The first thing you notice about Cat isn’t her disease — it’s her smile. A big, toothy smile that stretches from ear to ear. She beams despite her seven-year battle with Scleroderma.
Sclero means “hard” and derma means “skin.” It’s a very literal translation.
“If somebody touches their hand, for instance, the top of your skin, that skin moves. Mine doesn’t. That’s how tight it is. My fingers are not straight, they are curled because the skin is pulling so tight. Basically, my body mass produces collagen so my skin is almost leather-like,” Cat explained.
Her body is slowly hardening on the outside and on the inside.
“My esophagus is completely paralyzed from it and also most of my digestive system is paralyzed,” Cat said.
Fighting scleroderma
She was diagnosed when she was 22, and with no cure in sight, she isn’t sure she’ll live much longer. That isn’t because she hasn’t tried.
Four years ago, Cat launched a successful campaign to raise enough money for a procedure doctors believed would save her life. The Spokane community together raised $150,000 for the stem-cell transplant of her own stem cells.
It worked, but only for the first two years. She relapsed.
“My skin started tightening again, skin started curling, I was really devastated. After the first transplant, I saw positive things from it, but I never was super well — if that makes sense. I would watch other people who had done the transplant and kind of been following their stories and they were back to work and that was never me,” Cat said.
She was devastated but never deterred, despite losing her father to Alzheimer’s Disease just three months ago and her family losing their home of 30 years under crippling medical bills.
Cat has never lost her hope or her sense of mission. This time, she says, it’s not about saving just her life.
“I’ve had some of my closest friends die from Scleroderma over the last couple of years, and that is why I do what I do. I do it for them. I do it for myself. I do it for everyone out there with Scleroderma who doesn’t have a voice. For the unheard. For the too sick to speak out. I am fighting for everyone,” Cat said.
Her mission is why she’s willing to be what she calls the “guinea pig” for another procedure — a stem-cell transplant from a Scleroderma-free, perfect match. That would be her brother.
No one with her condition has ever had both stem-cell procedures. She had to convince a doctor to be the first.
“I’m pretty convincing. I know what I want. He was iffy at first and I just was like ‘you have to meet me, you have to see that I am strong and I want this and I can fight. I just need you on my team.’ And we met and afterward he was like, ‘I’m on board,’ Cat said.
So, CureforCat.com has launched again with everyone she loves giving you every reason you need to support this one cause. a video on the homepage features her mother, her brothers, friends and community members who believe in her mission to fight for everyone suffering from this rare disease.
“Every day I wake up and something is different. I’ve lost another thing that I can do. and because we don’t know what’s going to happen with the transplant — what’s going to be reversed, what’s not – we need it now. We don’t need it in six months or a year. I won’t even be alive in a year. That’s how sick I am. So it’s an urgent thing and I need the money ASAP,” Cat said.
She needs $500,000 for the stem-cell transplant alone. Like last time, in addition to her disease, Cat has also been battling Medicare. Scleroderma is not on their pre-approved list. She’s had six of her doctors write letters on her behalf, but still no insurance coverage.
If she’s able to successfully raise the money for the procedure, she’ll stay down in Los Angeles for recovery and care. The risks include “graft vs host disease” which gives her only a 50 percent chance of survival.
“Whether this transplant works or not at least I will have fought all the way until the end,” Cat said.
