Old Cats and Cancer: A Short Cat Cancer Story

It started off like any other Tuesday. The girls excitedly asked for breakfast, I then got my own and settled down to begin working from home.

As I opened my laptop Beany hopped up on the arm of the chair and at just the right angle I could see a red spot on her inner arm.

I immediately reached out and confirmed my suspicion, blood.

I ran to grab some tissues and as I examined her more closely I saw there was a lump on her arm, which is where the small amount of blood was coming from.  I waited for the vet to open and called to have her seen.

I emailed a couple of pictures and waited for a call back.

I was advised to get her an e-collar and to bring her in the next morning and they would squeeze her in between appointments.

The next day I dropped Beany off and anxiously awaited a call from the vet.

When it finally came, I was told samples from the lump were reviewed under a microscope and the cells were abnormal.

It could be benign or it could be malignant; we’d have to wait for cytology to review the cells.

Given the location and risk of infection, either was the standard course of treatment would at a minimum be removal.

Beany has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which puts her at moderate risk for surgery, so I knew immediately we were caught between a rock and a hard place.

Flash forward 3 days and I get another call from my vet – it’s the dreaded c word… cancer. Call it mother’s intuition or a premonition based on it being 2020, I just knew it wasn’t going to be good news.

The next steps would be to determine the stage of the cancer, which will require chest x-rays and another ultrasound.  From there my vet said we would need to see an oncologist.

My husband and I discussed it and we don’t think Beany would do well getting chemo or radiation.

She can’t stand the car or being handled by vets.  While we want to keep her with us forever we have to consider the amount of stress the additional testing and treatment would cause.

So here we are two days after diagnosis and we’re still trying to process the news.

We decided we would make an appointment to speak with an oncologist to fully understand the prognosis and what options are available.

Have you ever had a kitty diagnosed with cancer? How did you proceed after the news?

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