Hey everyone. My name is Dora, and I am posting this everywhere I can online in the hopes that it helps someone in the future who might be in a similar situation. This is going to be long and detailed, but it's my hope that if someone ever encounters this themselves and does a search for similar symptoms, our situation and experiences could provide them with information that help.
Last Tuesday, my five year old rescue cat, Nino, seemed to be struggling with a hairball. He'd been to the vet a few weeks prior for his yearly exam and vaccinations, and everything had seemed fine. I called the vet, and was told to give him some Laxatone to help ease it, since it seemed like he'd been working on it for a while. The next day, however, he had extreme difficulty breathing. His gagging turned to wheezing, dragging air slowly in and out through his open mouth, his tail lashing, moaning and growling. It seemed like it lasted forever, but even as I was getting his carrier out to take him to the vet, he had recovered and was up, rubbing against my legs, waiting at his food dish. I took him to the vet anyway... he hates car rides, but this one seemed extra stressful, and once there, when they took him back to examine him, they told me he had started turning purple, so he had to be put on oxygen.
I agreed to xrays, and the initial diagnosis from his doctor was heart failure. It looked like his lungs had filled up with fluid. My husband and I were devastated since we had gone through that before with our last cat, Herbie, who had survived a year after his own diagnosis with heart failure thanks to almost weekly trips to the vet to be drained and daily medication. Nino was given Lasiks in the form of Furosimide and sent home. The next day, we went to see a cardiologist who informed us that Nino's heart was not in fact with failure. Based on his symptoms, the options were asthma, pneumonia (or other infection) or cancer, but the doctor thought that was unlikely because of how young our cat is. Since the treatment for asthma is steroids, which can make pneumonia worse, but the treatment for pneumonia wouldn't hurt him if it was actually asthma, we chose to move forward as if it WERE pneumonia and he was put on 1.5 mil of Clavamox twice a day, with an appointment to see his vet for a follow-up xray on Monday.
Everything seemed fine for another day, but Friday night he had another attack that was worse than before at midnight. This time, on each exhale he gave a long cry as if he were forcing the air out, and he would "charge" around the house haphazardly, like a person struggling to get away from something. We rushed him to a nearby emergency vet. On the way there, although he'd started to turn purple again, he began to come back around, and by the time we arrived he was already alert. The vet examined him and said they could either keep him there overnight if we were uncomfortable, but she was also okay with us taking him home. He was already up and walking around the room by then as if nothing had happened, purring and rubbing against people, eating treats. His breathing did seem slightly deeper, and she advised us to try taking him into the bathroom and turning the shower on so the room steamed up, in the hopes that if it was asthma, it might help his breathing.
We took him home, and the following evening at around 10 PM he had another attack. This one passed after several minutes, but left him tired and panting. He coughed up a bit of mucous. We debated taking him back into the ER, but eventually he perked back up. The next day at noon (Sunday), he had yet another attack, this one worse in intensity, but passing much faster. We immediately took him down to the ER, because at this point we felt better about leaving him with them where they had access to all the equipment they needed in case his attacks kept worsening. We signed off on another batch of xrays, including all the medication and oxygen he might possibly need. At that time, the vet on call compared these new xrays to the original ones and said while it looked like his left lung was a little clearer, it didn't seem to be clear enough from four days on Clavamox to indicate pneumonia. There were a few other things they could do to diagnose at this point. One was a bronchial wash, which is basically what it sounds like (flooding the lungs to get a sample of what's in them) but would require sedation which is dangerous for a cat with breathing problems, and the other was a procedure involving sticking his lung through his chest with a needle to get a cell sample for testing. We signed off on ultrasounds, since they were concerned if it was cancer, it might have started in the belly and spread to the lungs. They would be in touch the next day.
On Monday they called and said that his abdomen was clear, and they had taken the cell sample from his lungs with the needle. He hadn't had another attack, but since he had become agitated during the needle procedure (as you might expect), they were keeping him overnight again, and we would hear the results back from them the next day. If it came back negative for cancer, they would send him home and use the cell sample to test and see what he was infected with and then treat it accordingly. At this point, I was fairly optimistic because everyone seemed to think that cancer was so unlikely for such a young cat.
However, on Tuesday we learned he had inoperable primary pulmonary neoplasm (bronchogenic carcinoma) of the right middle and cranial lung lobe. They gave us the option of keeping him there, bringing him home, or having him put to sleep. Devastated, we opted to take him home with medication (He is on prednisolone (5mg) once a day and theophylline (100mg) 1/4 of a tablet twice a day.), with the promise that the oncologist would call us the next day. Nino spent that night tired and disoriented from the medication, but he didn't have any sort of attack, thanks to the medication that kept the inflammation from his cancer down.
As with our last cat who needed heart medication, pilling him traditionally put too much stress on him, and he wouldn't eat pill pockets. So I made my own. I bought his favourite treats, Temptations (which are crunchy outside and soft inside) and I would use a sharp knife inserted along the seam to crack the treats open until I had several halves. I would then take the pill, dip it in wet cat food to make it stick, and "paste" it between two halves, so he eats it as he would a normal treat. So far, this has worked 90% of the time. Our cat who had heart failure, Herbie, had ten pills a day in this way, even Vetmedin (which is quite big), so that's I guess something I recommend you can at least try if your cat doesn't "pill" well.
Wednesday morning the oncologist called and confirmed that because the cancer was in two lobes, Nino was not a candidate for surgery. She said even if she performed the surgery, she knew she would miss something because of the way the cancer was growing, which meant that it was probably somewhere else we couldn't see, which meant we would put him through trauma and pain for nothing. He also is not a candidate for chemotherapy due to the type of cancer... she said it might potentially buy us a few more days, but there was also an equal or greater chance that it would simply kill him on the table. A total of nine different doctors and almost four thousand dollars in diagnostics later, there is nothing we can do.
At this moment, Thursday, Nino is sleeping. He seems more tired, and his breathing is deeper, but he behaves like himself. He's alert and social when people come to him, he eats treats, he follows me around and sits in the bedroom window watching birds. It is literally gutting me to think that he is going to die soon. The oncologist said it could be days, or it could be a month, and it's just up to us to watch him and judge when it's time, when he's in too much pain. We have learned of a local animal hospital on wheels that will come to our house when it is time to say goodbye so we don't have to drive him to the vet. Right now, we are making sure one of us is home with him at all times. He doesn't even seem to know he's sick. The vet said had it literally been any other type of cancer, it would probably have been treatable, and again, the chances of a cat as young as he is developing this were ridiculously low.
I'm not looking for sympathy or handouts or anything. I'm just putting this out here so anyone who might need to look up similar information on their cat's symptoms might come across this in the future. I'm not saying if your cat has the symptoms Nino did/does that they also have cancer by any means, but let this serve as a record of everything we tried and all the tests and issues that came up so other people have a point of reference.
Last Tuesday, my five year old rescue cat, Nino, seemed to be struggling with a hairball. He'd been to the vet a few weeks prior for his yearly exam and vaccinations, and everything had seemed fine. I called the vet, and was told to give him some Laxatone to help ease it, since it seemed like he'd been working on it for a while. The next day, however, he had extreme difficulty breathing. His gagging turned to wheezing, dragging air slowly in and out through his open mouth, his tail lashing, moaning and growling. It seemed like it lasted forever, but even as I was getting his carrier out to take him to the vet, he had recovered and was up, rubbing against my legs, waiting at his food dish. I took him to the vet anyway... he hates car rides, but this one seemed extra stressful, and once there, when they took him back to examine him, they told me he had started turning purple, so he had to be put on oxygen.
I agreed to xrays, and the initial diagnosis from his doctor was heart failure. It looked like his lungs had filled up with fluid. My husband and I were devastated since we had gone through that before with our last cat, Herbie, who had survived a year after his own diagnosis with heart failure thanks to almost weekly trips to the vet to be drained and daily medication. Nino was given Lasiks in the form of Furosimide and sent home. The next day, we went to see a cardiologist who informed us that Nino's heart was not in fact with failure. Based on his symptoms, the options were asthma, pneumonia (or other infection) or cancer, but the doctor thought that was unlikely because of how young our cat is. Since the treatment for asthma is steroids, which can make pneumonia worse, but the treatment for pneumonia wouldn't hurt him if it was actually asthma, we chose to move forward as if it WERE pneumonia and he was put on 1.5 mil of Clavamox twice a day, with an appointment to see his vet for a follow-up xray on Monday.
Everything seemed fine for another day, but Friday night he had another attack that was worse than before at midnight. This time, on each exhale he gave a long cry as if he were forcing the air out, and he would "charge" around the house haphazardly, like a person struggling to get away from something. We rushed him to a nearby emergency vet. On the way there, although he'd started to turn purple again, he began to come back around, and by the time we arrived he was already alert. The vet examined him and said they could either keep him there overnight if we were uncomfortable, but she was also okay with us taking him home. He was already up and walking around the room by then as if nothing had happened, purring and rubbing against people, eating treats. His breathing did seem slightly deeper, and she advised us to try taking him into the bathroom and turning the shower on so the room steamed up, in the hopes that if it was asthma, it might help his breathing.
We took him home, and the following evening at around 10 PM he had another attack. This one passed after several minutes, but left him tired and panting. He coughed up a bit of mucous. We debated taking him back into the ER, but eventually he perked back up. The next day at noon (Sunday), he had yet another attack, this one worse in intensity, but passing much faster. We immediately took him down to the ER, because at this point we felt better about leaving him with them where they had access to all the equipment they needed in case his attacks kept worsening. We signed off on another batch of xrays, including all the medication and oxygen he might possibly need. At that time, the vet on call compared these new xrays to the original ones and said while it looked like his left lung was a little clearer, it didn't seem to be clear enough from four days on Clavamox to indicate pneumonia. There were a few other things they could do to diagnose at this point. One was a bronchial wash, which is basically what it sounds like (flooding the lungs to get a sample of what's in them) but would require sedation which is dangerous for a cat with breathing problems, and the other was a procedure involving sticking his lung through his chest with a needle to get a cell sample for testing. We signed off on ultrasounds, since they were concerned if it was cancer, it might have started in the belly and spread to the lungs. They would be in touch the next day.
On Monday they called and said that his abdomen was clear, and they had taken the cell sample from his lungs with the needle. He hadn't had another attack, but since he had become agitated during the needle procedure (as you might expect), they were keeping him overnight again, and we would hear the results back from them the next day. If it came back negative for cancer, they would send him home and use the cell sample to test and see what he was infected with and then treat it accordingly. At this point, I was fairly optimistic because everyone seemed to think that cancer was so unlikely for such a young cat.
However, on Tuesday we learned he had inoperable primary pulmonary neoplasm (bronchogenic carcinoma) of the right middle and cranial lung lobe. They gave us the option of keeping him there, bringing him home, or having him put to sleep. Devastated, we opted to take him home with medication (He is on prednisolone (5mg) once a day and theophylline (100mg) 1/4 of a tablet twice a day.), with the promise that the oncologist would call us the next day. Nino spent that night tired and disoriented from the medication, but he didn't have any sort of attack, thanks to the medication that kept the inflammation from his cancer down.
As with our last cat who needed heart medication, pilling him traditionally put too much stress on him, and he wouldn't eat pill pockets. So I made my own. I bought his favourite treats, Temptations (which are crunchy outside and soft inside) and I would use a sharp knife inserted along the seam to crack the treats open until I had several halves. I would then take the pill, dip it in wet cat food to make it stick, and "paste" it between two halves, so he eats it as he would a normal treat. So far, this has worked 90% of the time. Our cat who had heart failure, Herbie, had ten pills a day in this way, even Vetmedin (which is quite big), so that's I guess something I recommend you can at least try if your cat doesn't "pill" well.
Wednesday morning the oncologist called and confirmed that because the cancer was in two lobes, Nino was not a candidate for surgery. She said even if she performed the surgery, she knew she would miss something because of the way the cancer was growing, which meant that it was probably somewhere else we couldn't see, which meant we would put him through trauma and pain for nothing. He also is not a candidate for chemotherapy due to the type of cancer... she said it might potentially buy us a few more days, but there was also an equal or greater chance that it would simply kill him on the table. A total of nine different doctors and almost four thousand dollars in diagnostics later, there is nothing we can do.
At this moment, Thursday, Nino is sleeping. He seems more tired, and his breathing is deeper, but he behaves like himself. He's alert and social when people come to him, he eats treats, he follows me around and sits in the bedroom window watching birds. It is literally gutting me to think that he is going to die soon. The oncologist said it could be days, or it could be a month, and it's just up to us to watch him and judge when it's time, when he's in too much pain. We have learned of a local animal hospital on wheels that will come to our house when it is time to say goodbye so we don't have to drive him to the vet. Right now, we are making sure one of us is home with him at all times. He doesn't even seem to know he's sick. The vet said had it literally been any other type of cancer, it would probably have been treatable, and again, the chances of a cat as young as he is developing this were ridiculously low.
I'm not looking for sympathy or handouts or anything. I'm just putting this out here so anyone who might need to look up similar information on their cat's symptoms might come across this in the future. I'm not saying if your cat has the symptoms Nino did/does that they also have cancer by any means, but let this serve as a record of everything we tried and all the tests and issues that came up so other people have a point of reference.
