My lovely cat just diagnosed with Lymphoma ,treatment options

[bruffin]

We have had her 11 years from CPL , she had kittens so probably 12 years old, she was no more than a kitten herself when we got her

She has a non operable lymphoma in her stomach and in her lymph nodes so vet said like a form of leukemia
She is being sick about every 10 days

Options are
Chemotherapy which will give her 8 to 10 months

Steroids which will be weeks

or just take each day as it comes

ATM she has lost a lot of weight, but seems happy. She is being violently sick every 10 days or so but not in any pain, just very hungry all the time.
She hates any form of tablets even hidden in her food , she avoids them or just wont eat if they are crushed into the food. Its a big fight to give her them in her mouth.
Anyone gone down the steroid or chemo route?

I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you and your cat are going through this 💐

I don't have any real advice as I've never been in your position but I'd want to know from the vet what your cats quality of life would be like on those options and whether she'd be in any pain. I'm guessing she'd need regular trips to the vets - does it bother her going? I think that's a factor to consider. Is she insured or can you afford treatment?

Hopefully someone will be along soon with some helpful advice for you.

So sorry to hear your cat is poorly My 14 year old cat was diagnosed with a very rare lymphoma beginning of last January and given max 3 months to live. I went for the chemo & steroid treatment plan and he responded brilliantly to it. So much so he's still here with us almost a year later! He isn't the easiest to get tablets into but wrapping them in a piece of ham or chicken did help massively.

He developed an eye ulcer (he is prone to these) in August and has been off the cancer meds since then as they were preventing his eye from healing. He's been surprisingly absolutely fine, just has a B12 supplement every other day to help him absorb the nutrients from his food. You wouldn't have a clue there was anything terminally wrong with him.

The vet thinks he's in some kind of remission and we know he will become ill again. We don't know how long this will last but he is enjoying life still and we spoil him every day.

I have him insured with Petplan luckily but just to give a heads up his vets fees so far are up to about £2.5k

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat. We were in a similar position...just before Christmas....two years ago and went down the chemo route and steroids near the end. Our 9 year old cat lived very happily for another nine months and died in her sleep.

There were a couple of times when we thought the end was near and our vet was very supportive, but she rallied and had great days lying in the sun.

The chemo was absolutely fine...she didn't appear to have any side affects and was her normal self all the way through. I think we had four or five visits to a specialist vet for chemo in springtime and it kept her going until the end of summer. It gave us and her, time to accept the inevitable. For us it was the right decision as she seemed still young and happy and we had a great vet who saw her every few weeks to make sure we weren't missing any obvious signs of pain.

Sending

Thank you all for your lovely replies.

I am talking to the vet again tomorrow, i just wanted reassurance that chemo won't be too upsetting for her.
How expensive is the chemo or steroids? We dont have insurance but happy to pay for her treatment, as long as it doesnt make her miserable

We had Pet Plan insurance and so didn't see the bills but your vet should be able to guide you.

And to answer your second point...it definitely didn't make our cat miserable - you would not have known that she'd had any treatment once she was home and leapt out of her cat basket!

Personally I would probably just keep her comfortable and let her go.

I'm so sorry. It's very hard.

I am in the process of finding out what is wrong with my cat but she has been on a course of steroids. She doesn't like tablets etc but we found that quartering or halving the tablet and wrapping it up in a small piece of ham did the trick. We used either primula cheese spread or hairball paste to stick the tablet to the ham. She now comes running when she hears the medicine bottle

Wishing you the best, be guided by your cat

The chemo treatment my cat was prescribed was in tablet form. It can be done via intravenous sessions but he is not a cat that would have put up with that! The tablet was given every other day with the steroid tablet on the the other alternate days. Chemo tabs have to be kept in the fridge and you have to wear gloves when you handle them as toxic.

We are currently on a joint steriod and chemo route. The chemo pills are every 2 weeks and I have the scars to prove it. :) My top tip, cut a corner out of a pillow and pop them in with just their head showing.

She has about 5 months left we think. She is happy in herself. Our wonderful vet asks for an update via phone every 2 weeks and then adjusts her dose. She started to put weight on again with just the sterioids and then lost again which is why we are now doing a combined approach.

It's hard and sad. very best of luck.

Oh- and in our case you cannot cut or crush the chemo tablets, and have to wear gloves. It's too toxic.

Our steriods are about £54 every two months and the chemo I think is about £80.00 for 6 tablets (2 tabs every second week).

Oh and yes to say again- she is perfectly content. She spends her days terrorising our other cat and leaving her teeth behind in the dog. That;s how she has worked for 16 years so no change there. :)

I did chlorambucil once a fortnight and a steroid every 2 days, for 5 years with my last cat, it put her into partial remission and most of that time she was absolutely fine.

We did have a few periods of her being unwell, throwing up again and off her food, generally a bit more lethargic where we thought she was going downhill, but then she’d perk up again... and her fur was a bit thinner and she really didn’t like being cold, but she was never that ok with cold anyway - she was a Siamese, so not exactly well insulated to start with.

As already mentioned though, the tablets have to be refrigerated, you can’t touch them or break or crush them and she had to have regular blood tests.

She was a very compliant cat though, the biggest issue we ever had was we were supposed to flush the tablet down with water which she fought until we established that making sure she had something to eat or drink did the same job.

I had originally thought chemo for pets wasn’t something I’d do, but after talking it over with the oncologist and realising that it’s not as aggressive as they treat humans, that the point is to preserve their quality of life rather than just extend it... and knowing that once she started it I could just stop if I thought she wasn’t ok on it I went ahead.

I wouldn’t do it with my current cat, she gets hugely stressed by vets visits and being given medication.

Don’t know if that helps at all...

Thank you all again

We have decided to go down the steroid route. She loves webbox lick a lix so hid one in that and she gobbled it down so fingers crossed that will continue.

Update
She has done so well on the steroids and it looks like the mass has gone and we are going to start tapering them off in 4 weeks

Vet was so pleased with her, she has gained weight again and everything about was normal, and he cant feel the mass in her stomach anymore