Cat saves owner's life after alerting her to cancer

A woman has credited her cat with saving her life - after it discovered she had cancer.

Sue McKenzie thought something was wrong with her moggy Tom when he started tapping the back of her neck.

But a vet told her Tom was fine and suggested her feline friend was perhaps trying to tell her something.

It was then she found a lump in her neck which was eventually diagnosed as cancer.

Sue said: "Tom doesn't actively seek out human contact so I thought he was behaving very strangely when he suddenly started pawing me.

"He would pat my the back of my neck while meowing very loudly.

"He did it constantly for two weeks and was starting to drive me mad to be honest.

"I didn't feel poorly at all but every time I sat down he was there tap, tap, tapping, always on my right shoulder."

The grandmother-of-two, 64, said she had suffered from gland problems before so did not think much when she first felt the lump.

"But Tom's strange behaviour made me think twice about it and I was eventually diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma," she said.

As soon as Sue went to get it checked out, Tom, who has lived with her for 20 years after she took him in as a stray, stopped tapping her.

And following six rounds of chemotherapy Sue has finally been given the all-clear.

"I suppose it's all thanks to Tom. He has saved my life in a way.

"But he's not bothered - he's gone back to being aloof and leaving my neck very much alone," she said.