Cat with Cancer

brokenheart

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Hi, my beloved not-so-old cat (about to turn 11) was just diagnosed with ocular sarcoma. Does anyone have any experience with this? He's receiving chemo, which seems to cause no side effects except his whiskers falling out.
Xrays and a cat scan didn't show any cancer spread anywhere else. (He had the affected eye removed.)

As you can imagine, I've been EXTREMELY weepy. I don't think I did anything BUT cry the first couple of weeks. Apparently this kind of cancer is rare -- both his regular vet and his oncology vet have each only had one other patient with it.

Has anyone had a cat with it who went on to live a bunch of years? That's what I'm praying for.

Thank you!
 

tarasgirl06

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Although I have no experience with that form of cancer, my beloved angel Rojita developed mast cell lymphoma two years ago, and we had to deal with that. I hope and pray your sweet guy is a lucky survivor. One thing I've learned about us all -- each of us is a complete individual, and even if there is another cat out there on TCS who's been through this, his or her experience will not be the same as your guy's. THINK ON THE GOOD SIDE and give him wonderful care, much love, and as little stress as possible. He has as good a chance as anyone of beating this!
 

littleraven7726

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I'm so sorry.


I don't have experience with Ocular Sarcoma.
My Raven has a Fibrosarcoma on his spine that is pretty aggressive and untreatable.

I hope you have many years left with your sweetie. Raven has good days, and bad. But currently has had 2 solid good weeks. We're hoping for more.

The best advice I've gotten since Raven was diagnosed, is this: Every day is a gift, treasure your time with them. This advice has gotten me through some of the bad times.
In the meantime, we've been spoiling him as much as possible.
 
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brokenheart

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Littleraven,

What are the bad days like? I'm so scared for my guy. He's the best-natured cat in the world. I hate the idea of him suffering at all. Can the bad days be handled well with pain meds?
 

hissy

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I'm dealing with a cat with squamous cell carcinoma. She had her ear flaps removed in late May, but the cancer has returned. The cancer is slow-growing though and I am treating it holistically. I recommend a book by Debra Eldredge, DVM and Margaret Bonham Cancer and Your Pet.
 

littleraven7726

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Originally Posted by Brokenheart

Littleraven,

What are the bad days like? I'm so scared for my guy. He's the best-natured cat in the world. I hate the idea of him suffering at all. Can the bad days be handled well with pain meds?
On his bad days he sleeps and doesn't eat much at all. We tried Metacam, but he had a very bad reaction to it.
We really thought we were going to lose him. We have one medication left to try, but he has been doing well so we are going without medication for now. Also, on his bad days he's visibly sore. His tumor is on his spine and on his bad days it even hurts for him to squat in the box or walk around.

We have a 1-bedroom apartment, so I set up a second feeding station in our bedroom. That way when he has a bad day he doesn't need to go far from bed for food. His fountain is in there too.

His good days are still outnumbering the bad.
So far he has just started week 3 of feeling pretty good.
He's eating well again (not losing weight) and playing regularly.
 

rang_27

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Oh, I'm so sorry. I've never had experience with this type of cancer. Have you asked your vet or researched how well chemo works for this type of cancer?

My Jordan may or may not have intestinal lymphoma (he's only 4). It is so very hard. I cried so hard when I heard. Due to the type of cancer he possibly has, Chemo adds 3-6 months on average. The only way left to get a definate diagnosis was to do exploritory surgeroy & I do not want to put him through that. Another thing with Jordan is that he if very agressive at the vets office & I made the very difficult decision not to do chemo. He would not have quality of life if he had to spend time every week in the vets office. I wish more than any thing it could be differnt for him. I wish you the best of luck and I'm sending many vibes for a many more years with your baby.
 

4meezers3kids

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I would ask your vet for a prognosis.

I had a cat ages and ages ago, who had a malignancy on her nose. It eventually spread to her brain ... but she never did have any pain -- just started not functioning too well, mentally.
 
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brokenheart

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I'm so sorry to hear your cats have cancer, too. I know all about the crying -- the first couple of weeks, I would go to sleep crying and then wake up crying.

Apparently, his is somewhat rare so the vet is treating him according to similar cancers.

The vet said the prognosis is about 6 months for cats who have this but don't receive chemo -- and I guess since she's only treated one cat with the same cancer before this, she can't guess how much time the chemo might add to his life.

Right now, he's great -- I'm the wreck!

Thank you all so much for your support.
 

rang_27

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To give you a perspective on what prognosis you do have. As I stated the vet said that the prognosis for intestinal lymphoma is 3-6 months with Chemo, average life post diagnosis without Chemo 1 month (You can bet I cried a lot when I heard that, but that was 3 months ago & he's still doing well)
I have to agree with Littleraven, enjoy every day with him. Jordan is doing fine on Prednisone (I think he's actually gained some weight). But this past Saturday I looked at him & it just hit me that he might not even make 5 & I lost it and started to cry. It's OK, to have those days, but you'll enjoy your time much more with him if you focus on how he's doing today. That's what I've had to do because every time I think about the future I get so very sad.
 

littleraven7726

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Because of the type of cancer Raven has, the vet was not able to give any sort of time frame. Which I think is a good thing. She said Fibrosarcomas tend to be unpredictable, and can even stop growing for periods of time. Raven was diagnosed in May of this year.

We are just watching his quality of life and spoiling him silly.
 

rang_27

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Originally Posted by littleraven7726

We are just watching his quality of life and spoiling him silly.
Yeah me too, but I guess I should be careful with the food, I have to weigh him but I would guess he's put on 1.5 - 2 lbs in the last month
I just worry about diabetes with the pred.
 
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