Help! Cancer (SCC) caused by (corneal) operations!

Question:

>but I didn’t want to look at these >photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her >absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ).

Lexy was very beautiful, Vicki Lauren =^..^= See my cats:   http://www.picturetrail.com/mickey4paws/703043

Response:

I’m sorry about your cat. I didn’t know chemo was even recommended for squamous cell cancers.  I’ve been this with 2 cats myself.  Chemo was never offered. Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right. > It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

Response:

So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him, Barb

Response:

> So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him,

Thanks, Barb. Seeing him standing next to me purring and licking his chops after yet another trip to the food bowl has made it all worthwhile. Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

Hi again Firstly, I"m sorry that you are finding brick walls instead of assistance (I read your other post) with this whole issue.  It’s very hard when we watch our furbabies fading away and feel totally helpless in finding options for things you can do. Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 25 Apr 2002, > Can I ask which chemo drug you were offered, and which vet you saw? > If you don’t wish to post that here, email me by all means, throwing > out all of the letter n’s from my address.

I never went to a specialist so I didn’t get any information on the kind of chemo that might be used.  Now, after all you’ve done trying to help your furbaby, you might this this was wrong of me – but remember, this was five years ago.  I remember doing a web search at the time for SCC in cats (particularly in the mouth) and I found exactly two articles.  Both of them were just basically saying that the most common form of cancer in cat’s mouths is SCC and that the prognosis is nearly always bad.   It was my local Vet (in Queensland, if that helps) who did the biopsy that confimed the SCC and gave me treatment options.  But in my situatino things were already too far gone with secondaries in her bladder (causing bloddy urine among other things) and in small discrete lumps on the side of her body (I couldn’t feel them when she was first diagnosed, but by the end they had reached about the size of a brazil nut, but Lexy never flinched when I touched them, so they weren’t causing her any pain. The hardest thing to watch was the most outward sign.  As the lump got bigger on her tongue she couldn’t groom herself properly. That combined with an increase in saliva (which the Vet told me was normal in this situation) meant that her long haired coat always looked scruffy.  I would have liked to have taken more photographs of her (even though I took an awful lot before she got sick) but I didn’t want to look at these photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ). Anyway, I drifted off the subject a little – I was never given the name of any chemo that might have been used because Lexy never saw a specialist.  The thinking at the time (again reminding you this was five years ago) was that the chemo might give her some months extra life, she may well suffer terrible side effects of the chemo that would make her time, although longer, more miserable.  To me that was the time to make a decision that was best for my Lexy and not for me.  So I made her last six weeks the best of her life, I hope. Please don’t think of me badly for giving up on Lexy so quickly, but we all have to make our decisions based upon the information available to us at the time and with our main goal remaining being what is best for the cat. > By the way, I’m not sure that it helps that you mangle your > email address when your post, yet write it unaltered in your > signature.

Ohhh thanks for picking that up  I don’t post to cat groups all that much anymore, so I don’t use this sig file often.  It has been remedied now though The only thing I can do now is wish you the ver best.  If you never lose sight of always doing what’s best for your cat, then you’ll be doing the right thing.  I hope that you find something where I could not.  I’ll be keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers. — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                                 //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Response:

You might like to check out this site: http://www.gladesvillevet.com.au and select the Nuclear Medicine link under Services.  They mention "a form of Radiotherapy" and they have an email address. If you ever saw the Harry’s Practice story on the old Tasmanian man with the cat with thyroid cancer, this is where they sent the cat for treatment. I’m sorry I know nothing about the treatment of your cat, but will include her in our healing meditations.   All the best, Val – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all.

Response:

Galen Knight has obtained some interesting results from informal field tests of his synthetic vitalethine:  http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/cancer/060801_cancer_can2.shtml —             _o                   Kristofer Dale,          _ <,_                  ragged individualist,    _____( )/ ( )_____            statistic at large… p.s. Learn and live, http://www.vitaletherapeutics.org

Response:

> Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them > nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

One of my cats has intestinal lymphosarcoma and has been undergoing chemo since December. The results have been absolutely amazing, and I really mean *amazing*. As I type this, a cat who would have been dead by Christmas is "burying" the ice cream bowl he just finished licking. He’s happy, unbelievably energetic, and more affectionate than he ever has been. With that said, here’s a little summary of side effects and so forth- Alex’s cancer made him vomit several times a day and caused diarrhea, so I really couldn’t say if the initial chemo caused him nausea, because he was already nauseated. During the first couple of months of his chemo, I would notice a _bit_ of lethargy, usually the day after his treatments. His treatments are weekly, with daily supplements of prednisone. He has vincristine and cytoxan for three of the weekly treatments, then the fourth week is L-asparaginase. (I had originally thought he was on a five-week cycle, then I learned to count and realized that it was a four-week cycle. ) A couple of months into the treatment, Alex lost his appetite more than he’d already lost it due to the lymphoma, and geting him to eat was extremely difficult. It turned out that his appetite loss was due to his white cell count being low as a result of the aggressive chemotherapy regimen. His oncologist lowered the vincristine dose slightly and there has been not a single problem with nausea, lack of appetite or lethargy since then. In fact, it has been quite the opposite- Alex eats like a horse and tears around the house like somebody attached a rocket to him. So, in a nutshell, nausea/lethargy/appetite loss can usually be dealt with. There are, however, some side effects that are usually unavoidable. For one, the cat’s fur changes. Because chemo attacks fast-growing cells, the cat will stop producing guard hairs (undercoat) and whiskers. Eventually, the whiskers fall out and the coat will sporadically look almost "oily" or "dirty" as the effects manifest themselves. If the season changes (winter to summer or summer to winter), there is a noticeable difference in the cat as s/he sheds the old coat but doesn’t grow new guard hairs. Alex had been *very* slowly regrowing fur that had been shaved for various treatments/surgeries/injections/whatever, and it all disappeared when the cats started shedding and growing their summer coats. At this point, Alex has a very smooth, bald tummy (it had been shaved for exploratory surgery and biopsy in November but it had been slowly growing back), and he’s down to one whisker on the right side of his mouth. His "eyebrows" disappeared first, then his largest whiskers, then the rest of the whiskers (except for that one that just keeps hanging in there). Another side effect that people often don’t mention is issues with the cats veins. Cats have small veins, and as the cat undergoes repeated injections, the veins form scar tissue at the injection sites that makes it harder to get a clean "stick". It’s much like the scarring you’ll get if you’re a regular blood donor- it’s harder to get the needle in and it’s more painful, to boot. At this point, Alex’s veins are pretty much shot, meaning that he has a lot of scar tissue and the vets have to be more creative in finding spots to stick (which usually means shaving another inch of his leg and injecting higher up in the vein). The injections are made in his legs- neck veins are only used for drawing blood as a central line would have to be run in order to administer chemo there. The scarring of Alex’s veins has caused one problem. His weekly Vincristine treatments are at my local vets’ office, while his L- Aspar is 90 miles away at the oncologist’s. There is a newer vet at the local veterinarians’ office who apparently isn’t as skilled with needles as the other vets. One one occasion, he either missed Alex’s vein or pushed the needle out the other side of the vein. The result was "sloughing" due to perivascular injection (injection outside of the vein). Vincristine is very caustic to tissue, and if it is injected outside of the vein, the tissue and/or skin in the area where the drug "spilled" kind of dissolves, for lack of a better word. Alex ended up with a large patch of raw flesh on his right leg above the elbow. It was very uncomfortable for him, and I was furious. The same vet also had to postpone Alex’s chemo a couple of weeks later when he couldn’t get a good stick. I spoke with the vets and all of Alex’s injections are now being performed by the two veterinarians with whose skills I am more comfortable. So far, so good, but it was horrifying that this happened to him in the first place, and it’s crucial that the veterinarian doing the treatments have excellent needle skills. Okay, so this ended up being much longer than I intended. In a nutshell, cats generally experience *far* fewer unpleasant side effects than humans do, but there *are* side effects. It’s just that for the most part, they’re not uncomfortable to the cat (although they make the cat look a little strange ). Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right.

I am sorry about your cat & her cancer; the fact that she was much more ill than at first thought, makes this a moot point in her case, but for other cats… … in general, cats (& dogs) tolerate chemo *much* better than humans.  At one point I needed to contemplate chemo for one of my cats, depending upon her test results.  After both talking w/ my vet & doing web searches, I’d decided to go ahead with it, if she had cancer.  One of my sister’s dogs did have cancer & he tolerated his chemotherapy very well; he didn’t act/feel ill, & it did put his cancer into remission.  If the chemo made the cats – & dogs –  feel awful (& since it causes remission, not a cure), *then* I would say forget it – & most likely, so would vets. Cathy — "Staccato signals of constant information…" ("The Boy in the Bubble")  Paul Simon – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

Response:

Well, maybe not necessarily. But keep reading to see why I suspect this. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ] (The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has been  able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its location  and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of doing anything  at all about it, as far as I know. ) The female cat has had a number of eye operations to treat stubborn ulcers that wouldn’t heal properly. The ophthamologists insisted not to run any tests for what might be causing these ulcers (like tests for bacteria or viruses or dry eye[KCS] ) after they assessed her, because her eye didn’t appear to be infected in any way. They put it down to lack of healing from old age, so the only options were surgery and more surgery. I’ve noticed that her vocal chords have definitely grown weaker right since the start of these operations in September. She was far more croaky. Also, whereas her purrs were very quiet before, she quickly started to purr loudly when she was worried (for example, after waking her up to administer her eyedrops). About 2 weeks after her second-last eye operation, her purrs became even louder when she was stimulated, and they started to sound wrong – more like a pigeon noise. She also became a bit more lethargic and keeping to herself. She would make unusual noises when eating her food (gulping, exhaling air with short sounds, etc). Before her last eye operation, I told the ophthamologist about this, so that he could have a good look when he put the tube down her throat during anaesthesia. A mass was found next to her trachael opening. It is in the vicinity of where the tube goes: ‘….a proliferative mass dorso lateral to trachael opening. Left  arytenoid and vocal fold abnormal – fleshy, pink mass extending  caudally.’ As I said, I did ask him to have a good look, so that he found the mass. But he thinks that its size would have caused it to be noticed during her previous operations. They suspect therefore that the tumour is fast-growing. A biopsy was done, and the result was: ‘Epithelial cell tumour – "probable SCC" (squamous cell carcinoma).  Laryngeal lymphosarcoma and granulomatous laryngeal disease can be  ruled out.’ Well, the standard thing people with cancer is that it could be caused by anything. Although the tumour apparently wasn’t there or was still too small during her second-last operation, I still think from the fact that her vocal chords were affected since the start of the operations, that all of the tubes down her throat, or the anaesthesia itself, played a part in this. The cat is on prednisolone tablets (anti-inflammatory) and Clavulox antibiotics. These are just to make her more comfortable. Unless I get a suggestion from someone else, there is nothing much more that can be done. Any solutions are only short-term, as the cancer is likely to recur. Apparently, SCC responds very poorly to chemotherapy. The location of this particular tumour near the windpipe (it cannot be even monitored without anaesthesia, as it’s too far down to see otherwise) makes it very difficult if not impossible to do surgery on it, and it will likely recur. Tracheostomy to give her breathing relief when it becomes too difficult – cats don’t handle this operation very well. And the tumor I think still actually remain there(?) and continues to damage local tissue. Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all. There is something promising called Photodynamic Therapy which has shown some good potential in destroying SCC cells, but it’s still fairly early stage in the US – I don’t think it’s anywhere in Australia, but if it is, do let me know! Anything else to suggest that may allow the cat to have a comfortable time as possible? Remember that this is not SCC on the ears or jaw where it can be accessed – it is next to the windpipe which is tough to access. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ]

Response:

Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know.

Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998.   She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were trying to intubate her). The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of discomfort. I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her go with dignity when the time was right. It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though.   Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for *her* sake. I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no matter what they do. I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply take out the litter part of my email address). — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Response:

>but I didn’t want to look at these >photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her >absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ).

Lexy was very beautiful, Vicki Lauren =^..^= See my cats:   http://www.picturetrail.com/mickey4paws/703043

Response:

I’m sorry about your cat. I didn’t know chemo was even recommended for squamous cell cancers.  I’ve been this with 2 cats myself.  Chemo was never offered. Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right. > It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

Response:

So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him, Barb

Response:

> So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him,

Thanks, Barb. Seeing him standing next to me purring and licking his chops after yet another trip to the food bowl has made it all worthwhile. Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

Hi again Firstly, I"m sorry that you are finding brick walls instead of assistance (I read your other post) with this whole issue.  It’s very hard when we watch our furbabies fading away and feel totally helpless in finding options for things you can do. Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 25 Apr 2002, > Can I ask which chemo drug you were offered, and which vet you saw? > If you don’t wish to post that here, email me by all means, throwing > out all of the letter n’s from my address.

I never went to a specialist so I didn’t get any information on the kind of chemo that might be used.  Now, after all you’ve done trying to help your furbaby, you might this this was wrong of me – but remember, this was five years ago.  I remember doing a web search at the time for SCC in cats (particularly in the mouth) and I found exactly two articles.  Both of them were just basically saying that the most common form of cancer in cat’s mouths is SCC and that the prognosis is nearly always bad.   It was my local Vet (in Queensland, if that helps) who did the biopsy that confimed the SCC and gave me treatment options.  But in my situatino things were already too far gone with secondaries in her bladder (causing bloddy urine among other things) and in small discrete lumps on the side of her body (I couldn’t feel them when she was first diagnosed, but by the end they had reached about the size of a brazil nut, but Lexy never flinched when I touched them, so they weren’t causing her any pain. The hardest thing to watch was the most outward sign.  As the lump got bigger on her tongue she couldn’t groom herself properly. That combined with an increase in saliva (which the Vet told me was normal in this situation) meant that her long haired coat always looked scruffy.  I would have liked to have taken more photographs of her (even though I took an awful lot before she got sick) but I didn’t want to look at these photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ). Anyway, I drifted off the subject a little – I was never given the name of any chemo that might have been used because Lexy never saw a specialist.  The thinking at the time (again reminding you this was five years ago) was that the chemo might give her some months extra life, she may well suffer terrible side effects of the chemo that would make her time, although longer, more miserable.  To me that was the time to make a decision that was best for my Lexy and not for me.  So I made her last six weeks the best of her life, I hope. Please don’t think of me badly for giving up on Lexy so quickly, but we all have to make our decisions based upon the information available to us at the time and with our main goal remaining being what is best for the cat. > By the way, I’m not sure that it helps that you mangle your > email address when your post, yet write it unaltered in your > signature.

Ohhh thanks for picking that up  I don’t post to cat groups all that much anymore, so I don’t use this sig file often.  It has been remedied now though The only thing I can do now is wish you the ver best.  If you never lose sight of always doing what’s best for your cat, then you’ll be doing the right thing.  I hope that you find something where I could not.  I’ll be keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers. — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                                 //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Response:

You might like to check out this site: http://www.gladesvillevet.com.au and select the Nuclear Medicine link under Services.  They mention "a form of Radiotherapy" and they have an email address. If you ever saw the Harry’s Practice story on the old Tasmanian man with the cat with thyroid cancer, this is where they sent the cat for treatment. I’m sorry I know nothing about the treatment of your cat, but will include her in our healing meditations.   All the best, Val – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all.

Response:

Galen Knight has obtained some interesting results from informal field tests of his synthetic vitalethine:  http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/cancer/060801_cancer_can2.shtml —             _o                   Kristofer Dale,          _ <,_                  ragged individualist,    _____( )/ ( )_____            statistic at large… p.s. Learn and live, http://www.vitaletherapeutics.org

Response:

> Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them > nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

One of my cats has intestinal lymphosarcoma and has been undergoing chemo since December. The results have been absolutely amazing, and I really mean *amazing*. As I type this, a cat who would have been dead by Christmas is "burying" the ice cream bowl he just finished licking. He’s happy, unbelievably energetic, and more affectionate than he ever has been. With that said, here’s a little summary of side effects and so forth- Alex’s cancer made him vomit several times a day and caused diarrhea, so I really couldn’t say if the initial chemo caused him nausea, because he was already nauseated. During the first couple of months of his chemo, I would notice a _bit_ of lethargy, usually the day after his treatments. His treatments are weekly, with daily supplements of prednisone. He has vincristine and cytoxan for three of the weekly treatments, then the fourth week is L-asparaginase. (I had originally thought he was on a five-week cycle, then I learned to count and realized that it was a four-week cycle. ) A couple of months into the treatment, Alex lost his appetite more than he’d already lost it due to the lymphoma, and geting him to eat was extremely difficult. It turned out that his appetite loss was due to his white cell count being low as a result of the aggressive chemotherapy regimen. His oncologist lowered the vincristine dose slightly and there has been not a single problem with nausea, lack of appetite or lethargy since then. In fact, it has been quite the opposite- Alex eats like a horse and tears around the house like somebody attached a rocket to him. So, in a nutshell, nausea/lethargy/appetite loss can usually be dealt with. There are, however, some side effects that are usually unavoidable. For one, the cat’s fur changes. Because chemo attacks fast-growing cells, the cat will stop producing guard hairs (undercoat) and whiskers. Eventually, the whiskers fall out and the coat will sporadically look almost "oily" or "dirty" as the effects manifest themselves. If the season changes (winter to summer or summer to winter), there is a noticeable difference in the cat as s/he sheds the old coat but doesn’t grow new guard hairs. Alex had been *very* slowly regrowing fur that had been shaved for various treatments/surgeries/injections/whatever, and it all disappeared when the cats started shedding and growing their summer coats. At this point, Alex has a very smooth, bald tummy (it had been shaved for exploratory surgery and biopsy in November but it had been slowly growing back), and he’s down to one whisker on the right side of his mouth. His "eyebrows" disappeared first, then his largest whiskers, then the rest of the whiskers (except for that one that just keeps hanging in there). Another side effect that people often don’t mention is issues with the cats veins. Cats have small veins, and as the cat undergoes repeated injections, the veins form scar tissue at the injection sites that makes it harder to get a clean "stick". It’s much like the scarring you’ll get if you’re a regular blood donor- it’s harder to get the needle in and it’s more painful, to boot. At this point, Alex’s veins are pretty much shot, meaning that he has a lot of scar tissue and the vets have to be more creative in finding spots to stick (which usually means shaving another inch of his leg and injecting higher up in the vein). The injections are made in his legs- neck veins are only used for drawing blood as a central line would have to be run in order to administer chemo there. The scarring of Alex’s veins has caused one problem. His weekly Vincristine treatments are at my local vets’ office, while his L- Aspar is 90 miles away at the oncologist’s. There is a newer vet at the local veterinarians’ office who apparently isn’t as skilled with needles as the other vets. One one occasion, he either missed Alex’s vein or pushed the needle out the other side of the vein. The result was "sloughing" due to perivascular injection (injection outside of the vein). Vincristine is very caustic to tissue, and if it is injected outside of the vein, the tissue and/or skin in the area where the drug "spilled" kind of dissolves, for lack of a better word. Alex ended up with a large patch of raw flesh on his right leg above the elbow. It was very uncomfortable for him, and I was furious. The same vet also had to postpone Alex’s chemo a couple of weeks later when he couldn’t get a good stick. I spoke with the vets and all of Alex’s injections are now being performed by the two veterinarians with whose skills I am more comfortable. So far, so good, but it was horrifying that this happened to him in the first place, and it’s crucial that the veterinarian doing the treatments have excellent needle skills. Okay, so this ended up being much longer than I intended. In a nutshell, cats generally experience *far* fewer unpleasant side effects than humans do, but there *are* side effects. It’s just that for the most part, they’re not uncomfortable to the cat (although they make the cat look a little strange ). Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right.

I am sorry about your cat & her cancer; the fact that she was much more ill than at first thought, makes this a moot point in her case, but for other cats… … in general, cats (& dogs) tolerate chemo *much* better than humans.  At one point I needed to contemplate chemo for one of my cats, depending upon her test results.  After both talking w/ my vet & doing web searches, I’d decided to go ahead with it, if she had cancer.  One of my sister’s dogs did have cancer & he tolerated his chemotherapy very well; he didn’t act/feel ill, & it did put his cancer into remission.  If the chemo made the cats – & dogs –  feel awful (& since it causes remission, not a cure), *then* I would say forget it – & most likely, so would vets. Cathy — "Staccato signals of constant information…" ("The Boy in the Bubble")  Paul Simon – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

Response:

Well, maybe not necessarily. But keep reading to see why I suspect this. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ] (The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has been  able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its location  and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of doing anything  at all about it, as far as I know. ) The female cat has had a number of eye operations to treat stubborn ulcers that wouldn’t heal properly. The ophthamologists insisted not to run any tests for what might be causing these ulcers (like tests for bacteria or viruses or dry eye[KCS] ) after they assessed her, because her eye didn’t appear to be infected in any way. They put it down to lack of healing from old age, so the only options were surgery and more surgery. I’ve noticed that her vocal chords have definitely grown weaker right since the start of these operations in September. She was far more croaky. Also, whereas her purrs were very quiet before, she quickly started to purr loudly when she was worried (for example, after waking her up to administer her eyedrops). About 2 weeks after her second-last eye operation, her purrs became even louder when she was stimulated, and they started to sound wrong – more like a pigeon noise. She also became a bit more lethargic and keeping to herself. She would make unusual noises when eating her food (gulping, exhaling air with short sounds, etc). Before her last eye operation, I told the ophthamologist about this, so that he could have a good look when he put the tube down her throat during anaesthesia. A mass was found next to her trachael opening. It is in the vicinity of where the tube goes: ‘….a proliferative mass dorso lateral to trachael opening. Left  arytenoid and vocal fold abnormal – fleshy, pink mass extending  caudally.’ As I said, I did ask him to have a good look, so that he found the mass. But he thinks that its size would have caused it to be noticed during her previous operations. They suspect therefore that the tumour is fast-growing. A biopsy was done, and the result was: ‘Epithelial cell tumour – "probable SCC" (squamous cell carcinoma).  Laryngeal lymphosarcoma and granulomatous laryngeal disease can be  ruled out.’ Well, the standard thing people with cancer is that it could be caused by anything. Although the tumour apparently wasn’t there or was still too small during her second-last operation, I still think from the fact that her vocal chords were affected since the start of the operations, that all of the tubes down her throat, or the anaesthesia itself, played a part in this. The cat is on prednisolone tablets (anti-inflammatory) and Clavulox antibiotics. These are just to make her more comfortable. Unless I get a suggestion from someone else, there is nothing much more that can be done. Any solutions are only short-term, as the cancer is likely to recur. Apparently, SCC responds very poorly to chemotherapy. The location of this particular tumour near the windpipe (it cannot be even monitored without anaesthesia, as it’s too far down to see otherwise) makes it very difficult if not impossible to do surgery on it, and it will likely recur. Tracheostomy to give her breathing relief when it becomes too difficult – cats don’t handle this operation very well. And the tumor I think still actually remain there(?) and continues to damage local tissue. Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all. There is something promising called Photodynamic Therapy which has shown some good potential in destroying SCC cells, but it’s still fairly early stage in the US – I don’t think it’s anywhere in Australia, but if it is, do let me know! Anything else to suggest that may allow the cat to have a comfortable time as possible? Remember that this is not SCC on the ears or jaw where it can be accessed – it is next to the windpipe which is tough to access. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ]

Response:

Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know.

Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998.   She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were trying to intubate her). The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of discomfort. I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her go with dignity when the time was right. It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though.   Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for *her* sake. I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no matter what they do. I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply take out the litter part of my email address). — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Response:

>but I didn’t want to look at these >photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her >absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ).

Lexy was very beautiful, Vicki Lauren =^..^= See my cats:   http://www.picturetrail.com/mickey4paws/703043

Response:

I’m sorry about your cat. I didn’t know chemo was even recommended for squamous cell cancers.  I’ve been this with 2 cats myself.  Chemo was never offered. Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right. > It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

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So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him, Barb

Response:

> So glad Alex is doing so well.  You have really done so much for him,

Thanks, Barb. Seeing him standing next to me purring and licking his chops after yet another trip to the food bowl has made it all worthwhile. Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

Hi again Firstly, I"m sorry that you are finding brick walls instead of assistance (I read your other post) with this whole issue.  It’s very hard when we watch our furbabies fading away and feel totally helpless in finding options for things you can do. Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 25 Apr 2002, > Can I ask which chemo drug you were offered, and which vet you saw? > If you don’t wish to post that here, email me by all means, throwing > out all of the letter n’s from my address.

I never went to a specialist so I didn’t get any information on the kind of chemo that might be used.  Now, after all you’ve done trying to help your furbaby, you might this this was wrong of me – but remember, this was five years ago.  I remember doing a web search at the time for SCC in cats (particularly in the mouth) and I found exactly two articles.  Both of them were just basically saying that the most common form of cancer in cat’s mouths is SCC and that the prognosis is nearly always bad.   It was my local Vet (in Queensland, if that helps) who did the biopsy that confimed the SCC and gave me treatment options.  But in my situatino things were already too far gone with secondaries in her bladder (causing bloddy urine among other things) and in small discrete lumps on the side of her body (I couldn’t feel them when she was first diagnosed, but by the end they had reached about the size of a brazil nut, but Lexy never flinched when I touched them, so they weren’t causing her any pain. The hardest thing to watch was the most outward sign.  As the lump got bigger on her tongue she couldn’t groom herself properly. That combined with an increase in saliva (which the Vet told me was normal in this situation) meant that her long haired coat always looked scruffy.  I would have liked to have taken more photographs of her (even though I took an awful lot before she got sick) but I didn’t want to look at these photos remembering her loos – better to have pictures of her looking her absolute best (like the one at http://www.kittecat.com/lexy1.jpg ). Anyway, I drifted off the subject a little – I was never given the name of any chemo that might have been used because Lexy never saw a specialist.  The thinking at the time (again reminding you this was five years ago) was that the chemo might give her some months extra life, she may well suffer terrible side effects of the chemo that would make her time, although longer, more miserable.  To me that was the time to make a decision that was best for my Lexy and not for me.  So I made her last six weeks the best of her life, I hope. Please don’t think of me badly for giving up on Lexy so quickly, but we all have to make our decisions based upon the information available to us at the time and with our main goal remaining being what is best for the cat. > By the way, I’m not sure that it helps that you mangle your > email address when your post, yet write it unaltered in your > signature.

Ohhh thanks for picking that up  I don’t post to cat groups all that much anymore, so I don’t use this sig file often.  It has been remedied now though The only thing I can do now is wish you the ver best.  If you never lose sight of always doing what’s best for your cat, then you’ll be doing the right thing.  I hope that you find something where I could not.  I’ll be keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers. — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                                 //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

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You might like to check out this site: http://www.gladesvillevet.com.au and select the Nuclear Medicine link under Services.  They mention "a form of Radiotherapy" and they have an email address. If you ever saw the Harry’s Practice story on the old Tasmanian man with the cat with thyroid cancer, this is where they sent the cat for treatment. I’m sorry I know nothing about the treatment of your cat, but will include her in our healing meditations.   All the best, Val – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all.

Response:

Galen Knight has obtained some interesting results from informal field tests of his synthetic vitalethine:  http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/cancer/060801_cancer_can2.shtml —             _o                   Kristofer Dale,          _ <,_                  ragged individualist,    _____( )/ ( )_____            statistic at large… p.s. Learn and live, http://www.vitaletherapeutics.org

Response:

> Meantime, a question:  I had heard that chemo in cats did NOT make them > nauseous, etc., like humans.  What have others heard/experienced?

One of my cats has intestinal lymphosarcoma and has been undergoing chemo since December. The results have been absolutely amazing, and I really mean *amazing*. As I type this, a cat who would have been dead by Christmas is "burying" the ice cream bowl he just finished licking. He’s happy, unbelievably energetic, and more affectionate than he ever has been. With that said, here’s a little summary of side effects and so forth- Alex’s cancer made him vomit several times a day and caused diarrhea, so I really couldn’t say if the initial chemo caused him nausea, because he was already nauseated. During the first couple of months of his chemo, I would notice a _bit_ of lethargy, usually the day after his treatments. His treatments are weekly, with daily supplements of prednisone. He has vincristine and cytoxan for three of the weekly treatments, then the fourth week is L-asparaginase. (I had originally thought he was on a five-week cycle, then I learned to count and realized that it was a four-week cycle. ) A couple of months into the treatment, Alex lost his appetite more than he’d already lost it due to the lymphoma, and geting him to eat was extremely difficult. It turned out that his appetite loss was due to his white cell count being low as a result of the aggressive chemotherapy regimen. His oncologist lowered the vincristine dose slightly and there has been not a single problem with nausea, lack of appetite or lethargy since then. In fact, it has been quite the opposite- Alex eats like a horse and tears around the house like somebody attached a rocket to him. So, in a nutshell, nausea/lethargy/appetite loss can usually be dealt with. There are, however, some side effects that are usually unavoidable. For one, the cat’s fur changes. Because chemo attacks fast-growing cells, the cat will stop producing guard hairs (undercoat) and whiskers. Eventually, the whiskers fall out and the coat will sporadically look almost "oily" or "dirty" as the effects manifest themselves. If the season changes (winter to summer or summer to winter), there is a noticeable difference in the cat as s/he sheds the old coat but doesn’t grow new guard hairs. Alex had been *very* slowly regrowing fur that had been shaved for various treatments/surgeries/injections/whatever, and it all disappeared when the cats started shedding and growing their summer coats. At this point, Alex has a very smooth, bald tummy (it had been shaved for exploratory surgery and biopsy in November but it had been slowly growing back), and he’s down to one whisker on the right side of his mouth. His "eyebrows" disappeared first, then his largest whiskers, then the rest of the whiskers (except for that one that just keeps hanging in there). Another side effect that people often don’t mention is issues with the cats veins. Cats have small veins, and as the cat undergoes repeated injections, the veins form scar tissue at the injection sites that makes it harder to get a clean "stick". It’s much like the scarring you’ll get if you’re a regular blood donor- it’s harder to get the needle in and it’s more painful, to boot. At this point, Alex’s veins are pretty much shot, meaning that he has a lot of scar tissue and the vets have to be more creative in finding spots to stick (which usually means shaving another inch of his leg and injecting higher up in the vein). The injections are made in his legs- neck veins are only used for drawing blood as a central line would have to be run in order to administer chemo there. The scarring of Alex’s veins has caused one problem. His weekly Vincristine treatments are at my local vets’ office, while his L- Aspar is 90 miles away at the oncologist’s. There is a newer vet at the local veterinarians’ office who apparently isn’t as skilled with needles as the other vets. One one occasion, he either missed Alex’s vein or pushed the needle out the other side of the vein. The result was "sloughing" due to perivascular injection (injection outside of the vein). Vincristine is very caustic to tissue, and if it is injected outside of the vein, the tissue and/or skin in the area where the drug "spilled" kind of dissolves, for lack of a better word. Alex ended up with a large patch of raw flesh on his right leg above the elbow. It was very uncomfortable for him, and I was furious. The same vet also had to postpone Alex’s chemo a couple of weeks later when he couldn’t get a good stick. I spoke with the vets and all of Alex’s injections are now being performed by the two veterinarians with whose skills I am more comfortable. So far, so good, but it was horrifying that this happened to him in the first place, and it’s crucial that the veterinarian doing the treatments have excellent needle skills. Okay, so this ended up being much longer than I intended. In a nutshell, cats generally experience *far* fewer unpleasant side effects than humans do, but there *are* side effects. It’s just that for the most part, they’re not uncomfortable to the cat (although they make the cat look a little strange ). Laura — One man’s mundane and boring existence is another man’s Technicolor. -Tick, Strange Days

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know. > Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) > My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998. > She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the > one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a > teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump > present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were > trying to intubate her). > The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, > but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but > that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to > eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her > life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it > would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on > cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without > surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when > you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three > months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that > whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, > possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. > So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of > discomfort. > I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I > have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and > not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her > go with dignity when the time was right.

I am sorry about your cat & her cancer; the fact that she was much more ill than at first thought, makes this a moot point in her case, but for other cats… … in general, cats (& dogs) tolerate chemo *much* better than humans.  At one point I needed to contemplate chemo for one of my cats, depending upon her test results.  After both talking w/ my vet & doing web searches, I’d decided to go ahead with it, if she had cancer.  One of my sister’s dogs did have cancer & he tolerated his chemotherapy very well; he didn’t act/feel ill, & it did put his cancer into remission.  If the chemo made the cats – & dogs –  feel awful (& since it causes remission, not a cure), *then* I would say forget it – & most likely, so would vets. Cathy — "Staccato signals of constant information…" ("The Boy in the Bubble")  Paul Simon – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though. > Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her > body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end > she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from > that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At > the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want > ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the > Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could > do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first > cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for > *her* sake. > I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news > regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any > treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get > your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries > develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no > matter what they do. > I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this > isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a > treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only > thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat > lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means > making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. > I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to > write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply > take out the litter part of my email address). > — > Purrs > Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // > http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= > Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie > Take out the litter to email me. > Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. > Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and > get used to the idea.

Response:

Well, maybe not necessarily. But keep reading to see why I suspect this. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ] (The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has been  able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its location  and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of doing anything  at all about it, as far as I know. ) The female cat has had a number of eye operations to treat stubborn ulcers that wouldn’t heal properly. The ophthamologists insisted not to run any tests for what might be causing these ulcers (like tests for bacteria or viruses or dry eye[KCS] ) after they assessed her, because her eye didn’t appear to be infected in any way. They put it down to lack of healing from old age, so the only options were surgery and more surgery. I’ve noticed that her vocal chords have definitely grown weaker right since the start of these operations in September. She was far more croaky. Also, whereas her purrs were very quiet before, she quickly started to purr loudly when she was worried (for example, after waking her up to administer her eyedrops). About 2 weeks after her second-last eye operation, her purrs became even louder when she was stimulated, and they started to sound wrong – more like a pigeon noise. She also became a bit more lethargic and keeping to herself. She would make unusual noises when eating her food (gulping, exhaling air with short sounds, etc). Before her last eye operation, I told the ophthamologist about this, so that he could have a good look when he put the tube down her throat during anaesthesia. A mass was found next to her trachael opening. It is in the vicinity of where the tube goes: ‘….a proliferative mass dorso lateral to trachael opening. Left  arytenoid and vocal fold abnormal – fleshy, pink mass extending  caudally.’ As I said, I did ask him to have a good look, so that he found the mass. But he thinks that its size would have caused it to be noticed during her previous operations. They suspect therefore that the tumour is fast-growing. A biopsy was done, and the result was: ‘Epithelial cell tumour – "probable SCC" (squamous cell carcinoma).  Laryngeal lymphosarcoma and granulomatous laryngeal disease can be  ruled out.’ Well, the standard thing people with cancer is that it could be caused by anything. Although the tumour apparently wasn’t there or was still too small during her second-last operation, I still think from the fact that her vocal chords were affected since the start of the operations, that all of the tubes down her throat, or the anaesthesia itself, played a part in this. The cat is on prednisolone tablets (anti-inflammatory) and Clavulox antibiotics. These are just to make her more comfortable. Unless I get a suggestion from someone else, there is nothing much more that can be done. Any solutions are only short-term, as the cancer is likely to recur. Apparently, SCC responds very poorly to chemotherapy. The location of this particular tumour near the windpipe (it cannot be even monitored without anaesthesia, as it’s too far down to see otherwise) makes it very difficult if not impossible to do surgery on it, and it will likely recur. Tracheostomy to give her breathing relief when it becomes too difficult – cats don’t handle this operation very well. And the tumor I think still actually remain there(?) and continues to damage local tissue. Radiation treatment I’m told is not available in Australia at all. There is something promising called Photodynamic Therapy which has shown some good potential in destroying SCC cells, but it’s still fairly early stage in the US – I don’t think it’s anywhere in Australia, but if it is, do let me know! Anything else to suggest that may allow the cat to have a comfortable time as possible? Remember that this is not SCC on the ears or jaw where it can be accessed – it is next to the windpipe which is tough to access. [I'd rather have replies posted to the newsgroup, but for email,  throw away all of the n's from the above email address. ]

Response:

Whilst licking their paws in aus.pets on 16 Apr 2002, > The main point of this post is to try to find out if anyone has had a >  cat with SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) near its windpipe, who has >  been able to live a decent sort of life with treatment. Note that its >  location and the fact that its SCC, makes it a VERY poor chance of >  doing anything at all about it, as far as I know.

Hi (I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find your name on your post) My furbaby Lexy, a desexed female, developed SCC of the mouth in 1998.   She had only had two anaexthetics in her life – her desexing one and the one where they discovered this lump.  She was actually only in for a teeth cleaning procedure.  The Vet called me and said there was a lump present on the underside of her tongue (they found it when they were trying to intubate her). The lump was sent away for tests, and just like your cat, she had SCC, but of the tongue.  They offered two kinds of treatment – surgery but that would remove about 2/3 of her tongue and she might never be able to eat properly again and would have to be tube fed for the rest of her life.  The Vet definitely discouraged me from this action because it would affect her quality of life so greatly that it would be bordering on cruelty.  The second option was to go through chemotherapy.  Without surgery, the chemotherapy might double her life expectantcy – but when you hear that her life expectancy *without* treatment was only three months, that means she’d have six months at the most.  And during that whole time she would suffer from chemo sickness making her nauseaus, possibly having her hair fall out and generally making her miserable. So I had to choose three months of gentle decline or six months of discomfort. I chose the three months and no treatment.  It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make in my entire life, but thinking only of *her* and not of my own feelings, I knew that the fairest thing to do was let her go with dignity when the time was right. It turned out the cancer was much more advanced than first though.   Wihtin a week or so she started developing lumps down the side of her body which the Vet said were probably secondary cancers and in the end she developed bladder cancer as well.  She lasted only six weeks from that first diagnosis, but I made it the best six weeks of her life.  At the end, she became very lethargic, and one morning she just didn’t want ot get up and eat or drink even.  So I decided to help her across to the Rainbow Bridge by having her put to sleep.  I knew I had done all I could do and I had made her last weeks as happy as possible.  She was my first cat and I loved her like my own child, but I also knew when to let go for *her* sake. I’m so sorry that my post doesn’t contain any kind of encouraging news regarding this terrible, invasive cancer.  But before you decide on any treatment (or even whether you are going to treat at all) you need to get your Vet to determine how far it has already spread.  Once secondaries develop there is very little chance that your furbaby can be helped, no matter what they do. I am sending you and you kitty all the vibes that I can muster that this isn’t as bad as it was for my Lexy and that you are able to find a treatment that works and gives you some more time with her.  The only thing I ask you to do is consider her life in your decisions.  We, as cat lovers, would always like more time with out babies, but if it means making their life uncomfortable, is it really worth it. I hope your furbaby does come through this and recover.  Feel free to write to me on private email if you have any other questions (to reply take out the litter part of my email address). — Purrs                       Vicki Whyte                              //   //   //   // http://www.kittecat.com                     =^^=   =^^=   =^^=   =^^= Lifetime member of Ailurophiles Anonymous   Augie  Siani  Issy  Lottie Take out the litter to email me. Dedicated to my Lexy, Toby, Chia, Meghie and Candi the Angel kitties.. Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Response:

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