Feline fibrosarcoma

[andintothefire]

I am hoping the collective wisdom of Mumsnet can help me with this! My lovely cat (about 15) has just had her second operation to remove a fibrosarcoma. It recurred about 6 months after the last one.

I am really struggling with whether to keep putting her through these operations. She recovers relatively well but hates going to the vet and is very nervous. I am just not sure how often it is fair to keep doing it if it is just adding a few months for her each time.

Does anybody have any experience of this? I wonder if I would feel more guilty if I decided to leave a lump that could be cut out and obviously I don't want her to suffer. At the moment I feel as though I should keep asking them to operate where possible. I don't think I could bear to see her suffer if I knew that something could be done about it. But then on the other hand I wonder if it is selfish to keep putting her through operations. If I didn't operate next time, would she eventually be in a huge amount of pain? If so, should I just keep operating as long as it is viable for her health and age?

Any advice or experiences welcome. Thank you.

Hi andinto

We had a cat with injection site sarcoma. Who has been removing the lumps? Your local vet or a specialist? Have you been offered any additional treatment like radiotherapy? What have the margins been like?

After our cat's operation it was really difficult to see him uncomfortable so can sympathise with your concerns about repeating the op. We were told cats seem to be disproportionately upset by this type of operation not because they are necessarily in pain (we kept him dosed up on strong pain relief) but because the tight skin resembles the feeling of being scruffed.

Our cat had regular check ups until 18 months post op when sadly he developed an unrelated tumour that was inoperable. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to have him PTS which was even more upsetting when he had recovered so well from the fibrosarcoma issue.

That being said, in those initial weeks and months after his op his recovery was amazing! Although he always walked differently afterwards, he began jumping and scratching his claws quite soon after the op. Because he bounced back so well, we would have operated again if the lump had returned. Especially when with complete removal the cat can go on to live a normal happy life. How does your cat recover? It must have been really upsetting for it to come back so soon but how was she doing just before then?