Sorry to dredge up such an old post, but I have an update.
The ear gunk came back earlier this summer. We took him to the vet and had his ear cleaned out and were given Baytril Otic to put in his ear. He was also given an antibiotic shot.
It cleared up in 3 weeks, but came back with a vengeance 2 weeks later. Took him in for another check, and to get his teeth cleaned. The pre-op blood work indicated high kidney levels, so they didn't do the teeth cleaning. They prescribed Hill's Prescription Diet K/D for the kidneys and cleaned the ear and gave him a shot. We also had to give him more Baytril Otic for the ear, and give him an oral antibiotic (yeah, that was fun). It didn't seem to work. We went back about 3 weeks later, and the doc took a culture of the gunky build up, gave him another shot, installed an E-collar, and gave us Tobramycin to put in his ear before the Baytril Otic.
The culture results came back that it was pseudomonas. It started to clear up, but wasn't even getting close to being completely cleared up. We took him back for follow-up bloodwork for his kidneys and another ear cleaning. The kidney levels were just above the high end of normal, so we're hoping the K/D will keep him there.
Meanwhile, the ear wasn't getting any better. During one of our twice-daily ear cleanings, I noticed what looked like a tumor or growth between a couple of the folds of his inner ear. We called & made an appointment for him & took him in.
The doc was surprised when he saw it. He thought we were looking at a swollen fold of his ear. He looked closer and saw that it wasn't supposed to be there, and that it went fairly deep into the canal. We scheduled surgery for the removal.
He called me after the surgery to let me know that everything was fine, and that the growth was so deep it was almost in contact with the ear drum. He did his best to scrape away everything he could, and kept two good-sized samples to send off to the pathologist.
Three days later, he called with the pathology report. The growth was a tumor. It's been diagnosed as Ceruminous adenocarcinoma. We discussed treatment options. Pretty much, if we want to get aggressive with it, he'll refer us to a feline oncologist for laser surgery & radiation therapy.
I don't see the point to putting Lorenzo through all that. We're going to just keep an eye on it and have it checked every 6 months when we go in for kidney level tests. The pathologist report said that, while it has a high likelihood of recurrence, it has a low chance of metastasizing.
