Our 13 year old female cat was just discovered to have a tumor (an adenocarcinoma) in her abdomen...believed to be attached to her small intestine. We took her in to the vet after she wasn’t eating for a few days. We did a biopsy and blood work. While no sign of cancer was found in her blood work, the vet is 99% sure the tumor is cancerous but doesn't know if its spread. In the mean time we’ve been giving her 2 mL’s of prednisone daily to help with the inflammation and it seems to be helping. We also gave her a shot of antibiotics. She’s eating and acting quite normal.
Our primary vet told us that if we chose to have surgery, the life expectancy of our cat would still average 3 – 6 months after surgery. Though she said some cases have shown that cats have lived longer…up to 18 months. Of course, cases have shown that some cats her age don’t survive surgery or don’t live within a week of surgery.
Another vet suggested we remove the tumor, which is about the size of my fist, and proceed with chemo. He stated that typically cats do “quite well†with the surgery and are usually back home in about 2 days and up on their feet again in about a week. My family and I already know we wouldn't want to put our cat through the chemotherapy…we have family members who’ve been through it and to put a pet through it isn’t something we’d want. But we're really unsure if we still want to get the tumor surgically removed to make her more comfortable and possibly give her a good chance to live longer. Would putting her through the pain/recovery time of surgery be practical? And would doing surgery and then not doing chemo be practical?
If anyone out there has been in similar situation I’d love some help/feedback on this.
Our primary vet told us that if we chose to have surgery, the life expectancy of our cat would still average 3 – 6 months after surgery. Though she said some cases have shown that cats have lived longer…up to 18 months. Of course, cases have shown that some cats her age don’t survive surgery or don’t live within a week of surgery.
Another vet suggested we remove the tumor, which is about the size of my fist, and proceed with chemo. He stated that typically cats do “quite well†with the surgery and are usually back home in about 2 days and up on their feet again in about a week. My family and I already know we wouldn't want to put our cat through the chemotherapy…we have family members who’ve been through it and to put a pet through it isn’t something we’d want. But we're really unsure if we still want to get the tumor surgically removed to make her more comfortable and possibly give her a good chance to live longer. Would putting her through the pain/recovery time of surgery be practical? And would doing surgery and then not doing chemo be practical?
If anyone out there has been in similar situation I’d love some help/feedback on this.
