By JON BAKER

EAST PROVIDENCE  ---  If you’re a pet lover, grab a handkerchief: You’ll need it for this “cat tale.”

When Donna Lopes first took in “Oliver Twist,” then a truly ornery, 11-month-old golden tabby, she hated its aggressive nature, and pondered sending it back to the “cat pound.”
Now the 47-year-old law firm receptionist is spending all kinds of money to help save -- or at least lengthen -- the feline’s life.
It’s an emotional story, one that sometimes causes Lopes’ eyes to tear up at the thought of losing him. She sat in her living room high above the entrance to the Kent Farm Apartment Community, speaking of four-year-old Oliver’s courageous, inspired battle with cancer.
“I’ve got a sneaking suspicion he’s going to beat this thing, and it’s because of his spirit, his enthusiasm,” Lopes said from her rocking chair Thursday evening. “One day, it almost looks like he’s gone, but then — Boom! — he blooms again.
“He took a turn for the worse just (Wednesday), and his head was nearly the size of a grapefruit,” she added. “I carried him out of the vet’s office last night, wrapped in a towel, and he wasn’t moving.
Now, less than 24 hours later, he’s sitting up and breathing much better. This isn’t the first time. My friend seems to think he gets better because of all the love he gets from me.
Then she laughed, “It wasn’t always that way.”

Lopes claims she was just being kind when she chose to be a “foster mom” to Oliver in January 2005, just months after she lost her beloved cat, Shamiere, to a kidney ailment.
“A friend of mine -- Katie -- worked at the North Providence Animal Shelter, and she called me,” Lopes noted. “She said, ‘I know you don’t have a cat, so -- if you could -- will you help us? We have one who needs to be socialized because he’s so aggressive.’ They needed him to mellow out; he was way too wild. Oliver already had been with about five families, but they all brought him back because of his attacks.
See CAT, Page A-2
“I was told the guys in the shelter had made him that way since he was a kitten,” she added. “They used to play-box with him while he was in his cage … They wanted me to get him to clean up his act, and I figured, ‘Why not?’ He was pretty cute.”
The same day she brought him home, she received a phone call from a friend, who explained she had an extra ticket to a play that evening at PPAC. The name? “Oliver Twist.”
“That was too weird,” Lopes grinned. “I thought it was fate, that I had made the right decision. When I came home that night, though, I found my crystal angel centerpiece was on the floor, broken. Obviously, I was very upset.”
As time went on, Oliver’s behavior only got worse.
“I’d just be moving my hands or feet and he’d claw at them,” she said. “There were times he’d attack me, and I’d end up with serious scratches, blood running down my arms, and I’d be in awful pain. He even used to eat my plants.
“He was a bad little cat,” she added. “I thought about bringing him back, saying he was a lost cause, but they told me he would be euthanized because no one else could control him … You couldn’t even pet him.”
One morning as Lopes prepared for work, she stepped out of the shower and Oliver attacked, gouging her leg, which bled profusely.
“At that point, I just whacked him, and gave him the ‘what-for,’” she said. “I hope I don’t get into trouble with the SPCA, but I did, and that got his attention. I also decided to pay him no attention for a few days. I’d feed him, but I wouldn’t even look at him, nothing.
“Next thing I knew, I’d be sitting here, watching TV, and he’d stand there, looking at me,” she continued. “I’d say, ‘What am I going to do with you?’ He looked so sad. It took some time, but then he started acting like a regular cat. What I noticed worked best was talking to him. When I said, ‘You know, Oliver, we need to get along,’ he’d stare at me, but I was getting through.
“Slowly but surely, it happened. He’d accept being held for a few minutes, and then a few more, but it was about six months before we became friends.”

***

It was around Easter last year when Lopes noticed a lump on Oliver’s head, and she thought the feline had whacked it on an ironing board.
“I tried to put ice on it, but he’d have none of that,” she said. “Then, in October, I noticed the bump was moving into his facial area. I didn’t have the money to take him to the vet, but there was no difference in his personality. I just hoped it would go away.”
It didn’t. Two days before Thanksgiving, Oliver began to vomit, then wouldn’t move. However, because Lopes recently had received a small inheritance -- about $4,000 -- after her great aunt died, she finally had the money for a veterinarian..
That initial visit to a Swansea animal hospital, which cost over $1,200, proved her suspicions correct: Oliver had cancer. Personnel told her they thought he would die within weeks, but had given him steroids and medication to prolong his life.
“They couldn’t operate because of the cancer’s location, and I couldn’t afford chemotherapy,” she stated. “He was in real bad shape. He had trouble breathing, and there were discharges from his nose and mouth.”
Lopes left him at the hospital that night, returned home and prayed, as always, at 10 p.m.
“I hit my knees and thought about the situation, and I decided I wanted him at home, be it a good result or bad,” she said. “I actually cleaned up the house to prepare it for him, and that made me feel better. When I called the vet hospital the next day, they said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but he’s up and about, acting like an ordinary cat.’
“I asked what time he started to perk up, and they said, ‘About 10 last night,’” she added. “No question about it, I knew why.”

***

Oliver relapsed again in late January, and Lopes took him -- as she had been for shots and treatment every two weeks -- to the Bristol County Veterinary Hospital in Seekonk. With new medication, he rebounded again. In fact, because of the cancerous mass in his face, his eyes had been pushed to each side, but the pills began to lower the swelling.
Now, the vets say, he’s beginning to get sight back in his right eye.
“When I took him in recently, one woman said, ‘You’ve go to call the newspaper. This is a ‘miracle’ cat,’” Lopes offered. “I just said, ‘Really?’ and that’s when she said she couldn’t believe how Oliver keeps surviving. She called it amazing, how every time it seems he’s near death, he comes back.
“He’s my best buddy,” she added. “We get along great. On most days, he’ll greet me at the door when I get home, and he loves to cuddle up with me. I’ve done a lot of crying the last few months, but I’m better now, and it’s because he keeps bouncing back.
“I don’t have much inheritance left; I’ve spent over $2,300 on the vets’ bills, but I’ll keep paying until they say it’s over. I have no clue how long he’ll be this way, but he’s a very strong, spirited cat. If he keeps fighting, so will I.
“The vets asked me just (Wednesday) what life I thought he was on, obviously talking about ‘Nine lives,’ and I told them, ‘Probably four or five now.’ Hey, he’s got at least four left. That’s what I’m praying for now.”