Friday, November 06, 2009

Why Don't You Pick on Someone Your Own Size, 2009

Our cat has lymphoma.



The good news is that she has no symptoms yet, so she's not in any pain or discomfort as far as we can tell. Keeping my fingers crossed that we can find a way to pay for the chemo.

Between the pet deaths and illnesses, job losses and money troubles, I am SOOOO ready for 2009 to be over.


EDITED TO ADD:

The kind of lymphoma she has is aggressive. The prognosis without any treatment at all is 30 days, and it took us almost 3 weeks to get through enough tests etc. to end up at the oncologists. At the very last minute, my boss managed to come up with about 15% of the total amount of the invoices that they owe me, so I was at least able to pay for the first batch of tests and treatment which is a huge relief.

The most recent set of tests has determined that the cancer has shown up in her spleen, left kidney and several lymph nodes. So even though she doesn't have any symptoms except for the visible tumor, her condition was serious enough to put her life expectancy without treatment down to a matter of days, not months. With treatment she should have 9 months of healthy happy life before the cancer comes back, if she responds well to the chemo and her remission is typical.

She's always been a bit of a benevolent diva, treating us like a kitty concierge service. But in spite of her imperious demands still manages to be one of the sweetest and most loving cats I've ever met. Since she's only 8, another 9 months for her is a significant percentage of her total life, and completely worth it to us if we can get a chance to spoil her for another year before she starts feeling any pain.

Plus I already spent one Thanksgiving Day just a few years ago having to put down a pet who'd suddenly gone into seizures and then a coma from a newly-discovered series of unsuspected silent tumors... I'd prefer not to spend another Thanskgiving Day at the emergency vet having to make painful and difficult decisions.