Possible lymphoma in the stomach. I'm devastated.

After a few weeks of my kitty vomiting blood on and off, we finally were referred for a sonogram. His blood showed that is slightly anemic. The sono showed 35-55% of his stomach was masses(sp?) I tried writing everything down, but couldn't keep up. They will try to do an endoscopy tomorrow if he is stable. He is there overnight. They said it could either be lymphoma or carcinoma. Do we do chemo? Anyone have advice? I'm devastated. He's been my baby for 16 yrs.

Prayers for him. I do know people taht did do chemo but it was for Cancer that came from shots. I do not know much about your cats problem.

Oh, I am so sorry. Prayers for you and for him. The cat I got as a child, (that stayed with my parents when I left for college) got cancer at the age of 17. We did not do chemo, as she had had such a good life, and we wanted to just enjoy all the time we had with her. She lived another year, feeling good and being loved on, before her health forced us to have her pts. It was awful, but we had some solace in that she had had a great life. Whatever you do, it will be tough, so you will be in my prayers!

Oh Bless him

heather: I'm sorry that you had to go through that. How did you keep your kitty's quality of life up? Was it a good quality of life although she had the cancer? That's all I want for him...is to be comfortable with us still being able to love him.

I am so sorry - prayers for both of you.

Cats are supposed to be very responsive to chemo for lymphoma, if that's what it turns out to be. I looked into it when Chase was diagnosed, but he was so weak already that the vet recommended against it unless we could get him in better shape first.

intestinal lymphoma is the most common lymphoma in cats at the moment, I have just lost a cat to this, sadly she came very poorly, so we didn't have a lot of options, but the vet wasn't pushing chemo. I did do some research, and a mix of steroids and chemo gives them the best chance, i know someone who did do chemo on their cat, and 10 months on, he is still going, the vet gave him 12 months. Fingers crossed the tests show they can manage it for a while for you.

Originally Posted by hatzy

heather: I'm sorry that you had to go through that. How did you keep your kitty's quality of life up? Was it a good quality of life although she had the cancer? That's all I want for him...is to be comfortable with us still being able to love him.

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She was really happy and comfortable for 8 months or so before we really noticed a decline. We just let her do whatever she wanted to do - sleep in the bed, eat twinkies (she loved the cream), and be the queen that she always was. She started to lose weight and have accidents outside her littler box. She never acted like she was in pain - I think she just hid it very well, but in the end, we knew it was time because she was so thin, and the spark was just gone from her eyes. So very hard. Prayers for you and your family!

As others have said intestinal lymphoma is common. My vet told me that with chemo average survival time is 7-9 months. I don't know if lymphoma in the stomach is the same? I have heard that if you decide not to do chemo pred can help keep a cat with cancer comfortable for longer. Definatly run things by your vet.

I'm sorry to hear about your baby.

Thank you all. They did the endoscopy and it is most likely lymphoma. He preliminarily did a slide of some of the cells and leukocytes were present, which tells him lymphoma. But I guess the real biopsy results won't be back until tomorrow.

What's worse is, the tumor is actively bleeding, which is causing him to be more anemic. He might now need a blood transfusion. Last week, when we thought this was his IBD flaring up, he was given an injection of prednisone and didn't vomit anything for 5 days. His stool was tan, which means he didn't bleed even though he was bleeding before the injection. So in the meantime, I'm going to suggest giving him another injection. If it helped him a week ago, why not now?
At this point, I don't think it will do more damage.

We're going to visit him now, which I'm dreading and looking forward to at the same time. I can't bear to say goodbye to him when it's time to leave.

Steroids can work wonders with cancer, and can buy them a lot of time, so i would ask the vet about it.

Update: We visited him last night and the nurse brought him into the examination room for us. She commented on what an amazingly good kitty he was. I knew that already He was still out of it from the anesthesia, but started purring the minute I touched him. His back legs weren't working so well, so he kept sliding around. I brought him his McDonald's (fancy feast) and some dry I/D. I let him lick the FF first and he practically bit the can apart. He was soooooo hungry. When I gave him the dry, he couldn't get enough of it! What an appetite! I didn't want him to eat too much and upset his system, so I fed him in bites every 5 minutes. They let us visit with him for a half hour.

Then when the nurse came back in, he meowed really loud and looked like he was having a seizure. He just kind of looked all spacey and couldn't hold his head up. Then in 10 seconds he seemed fine. She took him in the back for the doctor to check him out. He came back in 5 minutes later and said it was a reaction from the anemia. He decided it was time for a transfusion, which we agreed with. He was also going to give him steroids right away. Depending on what the biopsy says, they will start him on L-asparaginase (chemo) today as well.

I'm nervous about him coming home. I'm going to be watching him like a hawk.
I hope his strong appetite is a good sign for him.

I hope the strong appetite is a good sign too! I've read that cats react much better to chemo than humans do, so here's hoping for a lot of good days ahead.

Many many Prayers and for your little guy.

So glad he had a big appetite. I know it made him feel better to see you! Many thoughts and prayers with you!

I think the fact that he was hungry and wanted to eat is a good sign Continued prayers for your sweet boy

Well, Mikey is home. The biopsy confirmed that it is lymphoma. They gave him his first chemo treatment of L-asparaginase. The vet seemed confident that he should do well.

He ate a little bit when we got him home. He sat near the sliding glass doors, where he usually does and came when I called him and even jumped up onto the couch. But he's been sleeping lightly and hasn't ventured from there for a while. I suppose he's going to be a little low key for a few days.

I just noticed he vomited a tiny bit...some saliva with a completely undigested piece of food. Ugh. Now the anxiety begins.

Mikey is back in the hospital. He was very lethargic today and hardly walked anywhere. I brought his food to him, which he gulped down marvelously. We made a trip to petco and bought wellness, b/c of its low carb content. He ate half a can (3oz) of that and about 3/4 of a can of fancy feast. He also had 5-6 bites of kibble. So he ate very well today. But he wouldn't move to go anywhere but the litter box, which we moved upstairs for him. I called the hospital and they said to bring him back in to test the blood again. Well, from 28% yesterday morning, he's back down to 17-18%. So another transfusion and overnight stay for him. Poor thing. His levels were good yesterday. Yesterday, Thursday, they also did his L-asparaginase treatment, and started him on sulfacrate and pred. He was discharged and we had him home
overnight.

Obviously his bleeding won't stop overnight, but does anyone have any
experience with a bleeding tumor? How long will the medications take
to offset the anemia? The vet said the bleeding "should" stop. Of
course it "should". But we can't do transfusions every other day
either. Or can we... until things progress? Sigh. I'm so not
knowledgable about all of this.

Prayers for your Cat. I hope the bleeding will stop.