Toby vomiting and losing weight, fine otherwise

[mrsgreenjeens]

Well we heard back from the vet and he does have a mass between his large and small bowel. They believe it may be lymphosarcoma and are recommending exploratory surgery to find out what it is exactly and whether it can be removed. 
I'm still in major shock about this, he is our baby. It is nice to see him running around now, it is obvious he feels a whole lot better. But the loss of the stool makes him look quite a bit thinner as well. :-( :-( :-(

Oh dear...this is not good news.

  BUT, if it IS lymphosarcoma, hopefully you've caught it soon enough to treat it successfully

.   Thank goodness you were proactive in this whole thing!!  And keep remembering Laurie's Lazlo and how he came thru with flying colors against all odds! 

 

[barbb]

We have an appointment Monday morning with a surgeon. I am wondering if anyone has had cats before with terminal cancer who have had surgery and whether the surgery prolonged their life meaningfully. I want to do what's right, am going to talk to our vet more too. He is thin and seems still active but I don't want the surgery to do him in. And I've read that this illness responds well to chemo if it is small cell version. 

 

[ldg]

Small cell lympho has an 85% success rate with chemo, and if it does go into remission, it stays in remission. But small cell lympho is only about 15% of all lymphosarcomas.

Momofmany had a dog with a tumor in her sinus/mouth, I think it was. She had the surgery done, and they removed what they could. I do not remember how long they gave the dog to live, but it was something on the order of 8 weeks. She lived for two years, I believe it was. You may want to PM her about it.

Honestly, the surgeon will let you know his opinion. And ask him the question we always do. If this was YOUR cat, what would you do?

:heart3:

 

[barbb]

Thanks Laurie, I will do that, I know Amy! And I will definitely talk to the surgeon- our vet gave us a lot of advice on what to do when talking to the surgeon so that we are not just letting them do surgery despite him possibly being too weak. 

 

[momofmany]

My Ellie Mae (dog) had a highly malignant tumor in the roof of her mouth. When the vet went in to do the surgery for the biopsy, he removed everything he could find at the time and sent in the biopsy. When the results came back in, they gave her a month to live, as they assumed it had already spread because of the type of cells they found. 18 months later, she died from a massive stroke. at age 14. The cancer was obviously fully removed and never came back. You can have great success with localized tumors.

Lymphosarcoma is a beast in itself. Depending on where it starts, it can spread very quickly and chemo may be your only option. I lost my first cat to lymphosarcoma and they never found any indication in his blood work. It took a surgical biopsy to confirm it.

Chemo is so much better these days than it was when I lost my first baby over 20 years ago. If you have the resources to do it, and Toby can tolerate it, that may be your best option.

Sending vibes!

 

[barbb]

This is really helpful information. Anyone whose pet has had cancer or a serious surgery, I am interested to hear about it and the pro's and con's. We have not ever been through this and I want to have all the possible advice to help put together our questions when we meet with the surgeon on Monday. 

In the meantime our little boy is doing well and I'm feeding him a lot and he is eating it yay! I posted some pictures taken yesterday on facebook and made them available for the public, you can see it here: http://www.facebook.com/barbara.berendt

 

[barbb]

I think people on this site should also know that my vet told me that, based on his history and a previous episode of impacted stool 10 years ago, this sarcoma in Toby was probably dormant and was activated somehow by an immune response in his system. I said to her, that would be the 3-year rabies shot he got a year ago last november. There wasn't anything else in his life that would have done it. I had taken him to the vet for a dental and he had to get a rabies shot by law, so I allowed them to do a 3 year shot just because I didn't want to subject him to one again. I noticed that right after the shot he started acting strange, eating frantically, and it went on months without any other symptons. I had a sickening feeling at the time that the shot had done something to him that could not be undone.

The vet said she was used to seeing immune reactions on the skin of cats from rabies shots but not this. Yet she did not rule out what I had said either. I did some research further to our conversation and here is what I found:

---------------------------------------------------

Adjuvanted vaccine: an adjuvant is an agent added to a vaccine to help stimulate the immune system. See below for more information on adjuvanted versus non-adjuvanted vaccines.

Adjuvanted versus non-adjuvanted vaccines

Thanks to a 1991 letter to the editor in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, a possible connection to adjuvanted rabies vaccines and sarcomas in cats was raised. This discussion led to the formation of the Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force to tabulate and track vaccination data.

As a result of these studies, non-adjuvanted vaccines are now available, the only non-adjuvanted rabies vaccine for cats at this writing (2011) is Purevax, manufactured by Merial. It is labeled for 1 year - cats who receive this vaccination must be revaccinated annually (every year) according to labeling.

From the VAFSTF:

Vaccine-associated feline sarcomas are a conundrum for the veterinary medical profession. We do not understand the attributes of the feline immune system and genome that make cats susceptible to VAFS, yet we must continue to vaccinate cats against key infectious diseases.

Full post

From UC Davis College of Veterinary Medicine:

We currently stock and suggest the use of the recombinant [non-adjuvanted] rabies vaccine, although there is no evidence as yet that it is associated with a decreased risk of sarcoma formation. For the killed rabies vaccines, a booster is required at one year, and thereafter, rabies vaccination should be performed every 3 years using a vaccine approved for 3-year administration.

Full post

Vaccine requirements for each pet and geographic location are different. Please speak to your veterinarian about the best vaccination protocol for your specific pet(s), location, and lifestyle.

http://vetmedicine.about.com/od/veterinaryqa/f/RabiesVaccine.htm

 

[dianev66]

May I suggest that you not vaccinate your cat for anything from now on.  Find a holistic vet and ask him/her to write you a waiver for a rabies vaccine since in most states cats are suppose to have it every year.  

 

[finnlacey]

Any vet worth their salt being a traditional or holistic vet would give you a waiver from now on. If they don't, time to find another vet. 

 

[barbb]

Yeah I don't plan on anymore vaccinations for him.

I only took him to begin with because he needed a dental. I tend to avoid the vet (see below) and I don't take them in for shots. But I had begun to foster kitties again, two that are FIV+, and I wasn't sure what other kitties might be coming into my house and where they might be coming from. I keep them in a separate foster room because Toby does not like fosters anymore-  boy cats in particular. I wasn't worried about the FIV transmitting but I did worry about other opportunistic illnesses that might come along with rescues. You do your best to create a barrier but it doesn't always work.

My vet is a holistic vet; I'm pretty sure she is aware of what happened as we discussed it. There won't be any problems.

I am just so upset because the last three cats I have taken to a vet were all in otherwise great shape when they went in there- but my girl Bell died from idiopathic chylothorax where she tore her lymphatic tissue (I believe during her exam/x-rays in back), Curly reacted to his rabies vaccine with severe skin/food allergies, and now Toby has lymphosarcoma. All from their trips to the vet. 

 

[barbb]

Toby update- I just brought him home in the last hour. Our meeting with the surgeon went well. He started out by saying that lymphosarcoma is not a surgery disease and so there is no plan at the moment to do a surgery. He did an ultrasound-guided needle biopsy, a blood panel, and exam. He said the bloodwork looks fine, one of the kidney function numbers is slightly elevated, and they were not able to get a tumor biopsy but they did get a lymph node fluid sample. We will have the results probably Thursday and they will call us. 

Overall we were very happy with our experience; I think they treated our little boy (and us) very kindly. My prayers now are that Toby has the type of lymphosarcoma that responds well to chemotherapy as that will likely be his course of treatment.

Thank you everyone for the support you have given me on this site, I really appreciate it. This is so very hard to go through :-(. Toby crying, me crying, John crying. 

 

[finnlacey]

Well let me start by saying how happy I am that he's had his needle biopsy done and everything went well. And please know that most of us know in some way or another what you are going through. It makes for strange bedfellows but you'll find that when you have a similar love for these babies, the compassion and support is there. Please don't forget to take care of yourselves too!!! That's very important okay?!

 

[ldg]

finnlacey is right - you must make sure to take care of yourself too, because you need to be strong for Toby! :heart2: :rub: I cried a lot those first few days, but the only time I cried around Lazlo was when they first told us it's probably cancer and it was bad (they actually told us after the x-ray that it looked like a type of cancer that isn't treatable, and we thought we were going to have to make the decision that night to let him go!). I guess it was such a relief to find out it might be treatable that we were able to be happy about the diagnosis, as backwards as that sounds.

But I quickly realized Lazlo needed me to be hopeful and happy, he needed me to vibrate confidence and all the positive love I could. :heart3: :nod:

I'm SURE you're running a large gamut of emotions right now, especially anger because of what you just told us about your kitties and the vet. The next few days, waiting for the result will be especially difficult! And we are SO here for you during this time in limbo!!!

 

[barbb]

Thank you everyone, your words of encouragement and support mean so very much to me, you will never know. And yes it made me ill to look at my Toby and think how he would be fine right now if only I hadn't taken him in to the vet. You try to do all the right things and just the opposite happens. Here he is back from the vet today, so sweet!. 

 

[finnlacey]

AWWWWWWWWW Toby is gorgeous! Sweet boy. Well, this is off topic but 8 years ago my brother-in-law went into the hospital for a hernia and never came home. The doctor cut his main artery and let him bleed out. So it doesn't just happen to cats. 

 

[barbb]

Ohhh that is horrible! I'm so sorry that happened, even 8 yrs ago. I know what you mean though :-(. Years ago when my mom was in the hospital for chemotherapy they punctured her lung bc they could not get the tube in right. And she was so weak even before that, she never really bounced back. Here are a few other Toby pix- one where he is chubby, and one last night when I was giving treats to my kitties. 

 

[ldg]

That shot of Toby in mid-air is just AWESOME! :lol3: :bigthumb: All of your babies are adorable - but Toby is just too precious!!! SUCH a sweet face. :heart2:

And Lisa (finnlacy) - OMG, that is absolutely horrible! I'm seriously at a loss for words!!!!!!

BTW, if you want to read our journey with Lazlo, it is here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/234030/mega-massive-vibes-for-lazlo-urgent The first page or two is just getting the wrong then proper diagnosis, we begin chemo on page 4. So it's after that you can see the ups and downs with feeding and treatments. :nod:

Of course, I'm still hoping Toby doesn't have lympho!

 

[finnlacey]

He didn't die immediately either, he was in a coma for 2 weeks and it was NOT pretty. And that doctor is still practicing. None of us will ever get over it. My sister turned into a big mess after that. They were together 38 years of marriage and together since children. sigh. anyway, Toby is so precious, also sending positive vibes your way. 

 

[dianev66]

I am praying for you kitty and for you also.  It is hard to be strong during these times even though we need to for our babies. It is so hard to imagine that the people we trust with our lives and the lives or our loved ones can be so reckless.  

 

[dianev66]

Have you thought of Reiki?  I have heard some really good things about Reiki.  Also, if you go on youtube you can download individual songs for cats.  I download "Unleasing My Chakra" for BooBoo. Its called relaxation music for cats.  I really believe in treating the whole being and energy healing is one that we often overlook.  I don't light candles, etc because BooBoo has asthma and in general it isn't good for their little lungs to breathe in smoke of any kind.