One of my cats, Domino (approaching 11 this coming spring) had been losing weight and having intermittent diarrhea (sometimes it is normal, but sometimes it's very liquid, sometimes it's just mushy with solid bits ...). His stool exams were normal, his bloodwork was almost all normal (he had high glucose, but only three points above the top of the reference range). But you could tell something just wasn't quite right, because he seemed to be just wasting away. His appetite is normal, he doesn't vomit, and his behavior is the same as it's always been.
But, finally, we got a diagnosis as to what is wrong, and it's gastric lymphoma. I'm taking a little time to take that in, figure out what I can do (chemotherapy prices are just kind of right out, especially this year after my washing machine and furnace both required replacement). He also has a heart murmur that was detected before all of these newer symptoms, but seemed to be in the 'innocent' category, but makes the vet concerned about using steroids.
Previously, he always had an odd reaction when he got both his vaccines at the same time--if they were separated by a week and put in different locations, there'd only be a tiny lump you had to find by searching in the fur vs if he got them at the same time, it'd be a lump that looked like a half a pingpong ball got stuffed under his fur (not that it bothered him, but it kind of bothered us and was easily avoided by splitting his vaccines) and chronic goopy eyes (waxed and waned but never entirely gone). He had been trapped by the rescue that I adopted him from along with Autumn and TV (Autumn probably being the mother of the other two--she had all her adult teeth when they were trapped, but TV & Domino were in a mixed baby/adult teeth stage that put them around 4-5 months--it was believed that because of the remote location that this had been a "dump job"), they were all desperately underweight then, and when he was finally trapped it was found that he had a spiral fracture in one hind leg. I adopted them in 2014.
So now I am caught in this 'what can I do' and 'what should I do'. He is not my oldest cat (that would be Circe, who will be 15 in February, and Autumn is an unknown number of months older than TV & Domino.
But, finally, we got a diagnosis as to what is wrong, and it's gastric lymphoma. I'm taking a little time to take that in, figure out what I can do (chemotherapy prices are just kind of right out, especially this year after my washing machine and furnace both required replacement). He also has a heart murmur that was detected before all of these newer symptoms, but seemed to be in the 'innocent' category, but makes the vet concerned about using steroids.
Previously, he always had an odd reaction when he got both his vaccines at the same time--if they were separated by a week and put in different locations, there'd only be a tiny lump you had to find by searching in the fur vs if he got them at the same time, it'd be a lump that looked like a half a pingpong ball got stuffed under his fur (not that it bothered him, but it kind of bothered us and was easily avoided by splitting his vaccines) and chronic goopy eyes (waxed and waned but never entirely gone). He had been trapped by the rescue that I adopted him from along with Autumn and TV (Autumn probably being the mother of the other two--she had all her adult teeth when they were trapped, but TV & Domino were in a mixed baby/adult teeth stage that put them around 4-5 months--it was believed that because of the remote location that this had been a "dump job"), they were all desperately underweight then, and when he was finally trapped it was found that he had a spiral fracture in one hind leg. I adopted them in 2014.
So now I am caught in this 'what can I do' and 'what should I do'. He is not my oldest cat (that would be Circe, who will be 15 in February, and Autumn is an unknown number of months older than TV & Domino.