UPDATE: The vet just called! Lab tests back and it WASN'T cancer!!! We made the right decision with the surgery! Vet said that if we would have waited until this Monday for the surgery, he couldn't do it because he got sick, so good thing we had it done last Friday!! What a relief!!! Yesterday he started limping on his front leg, but this morning he isn't limping quite as much on the front leg that had the IV.
We dropped Bucher off at the vet for surgery this morning. We are so nervous! Keep hoping we have done the right thing! Boo has seen 3 different vets and all said that we should have the surgery! We are keeping our fingers crossed!!!
Since Bucher was diagnosed with anaplasmosis last fall, he went on the antibiotics, and everything was supposed to be okay. I have been saying that I didn’t think he ever snapped back to his normal self. We took him to the vet today, after many calls to the vets, for x-rays. He has a tumor on his spleen. We have to make an appt. for an ultra sound to see if it is contained or has spread. If it hasn’t spread the vet feels removing it should give Boo the chance to have a normal life. Has anyone else had any experience with tumors on the spleen (Boo will be 10 in October)? This was so not the news that we wanted to hear! The vet just called back and our appt. for the ultra sound is 1:00 pm Monday. Keep your fingers crossed for Boo! :(
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I am so sorry to hear about Boo. I have no experience with this sort of tumor. All I can pass on is my decision-making process which I use for most big decisions, and that I used when my elderly cat had cancer. I want to say up-front that my post isn't a happy-ending story, so if you're not up to reading it just skip past it.
What I ask myself (and I got this from my husband):
What's the best that can happen?
What's the worst that can happen?
What's the MOST likely to happen?
Alice was 16, going on 17 when we found her tumor. It was cancerous. Choices were surgery then chemo, chemo alone, or nothing.
When I thought of the surgery, the best that could happen was they got all the tumor. In that case, she would go through a traumatic surgery and recovery which would be bewildering and scary to her. Healing would take awhile because of her age. At most, she would then have another year or two left because of her age.
Worse case scenario, to be blunt, was that she did not survive surgery and her last memories were being alone and terrified in a vet's pre-op cage.
Most likely scenario was that the surgery got most of the tumor, and then it would grow back and in another month, or maybe two or three, we'd be right back where we started.
To be honest, for us the worst case scenario was unbearable to think of, and since the best case scenario was not that great and the most likely scenario was even worse, so when I added it up surgery made no sense. If she was 7 and not almost 17, I would have weighed it differently; best-case scenario would have given us another 10 years and she would be more likely to survive the surgery.
We opted to try one chemo treatment to see how she tolerated it. Sadly, she didn't tolerate it at all. She went quickly after that.
I'm so sorry you are in this situation and I am hoping it's benign and treatable. You will be in my thoughts.
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