In addition to mrguy's health situation, we've also been managing cat things. Our sweet boy has had a series of sinus infections, and then paw cancer. He had surgery to remove the thing on his paw and biopsy it. I took him out of his cone during breakfast and he savaged the incision and ripped out the stitches in a matter of seconds when we looked away for a sec.
Then we took him back to the doctor and she wrapped the paw. Mr boy was not happy -- stump, drag, stump drag, and we replaced the bandage a few times. Much to the surprise of the doctor, it started healing.
During this month he's had 3 regular vets and an oncologist because it's summer. Pet guardians, do not let your charges need complicated care during vacation season. Oy.
In the middle of this the respiratory thing came back and so he's being seen for that also. Cerenia and fortiflora usually do the trick but are not doing the trick. Now we're on a nasal steroid. The vet we started with is back from her vacation (she went on vacation after she did the biopsy. then we were seen by another of our vets who was one day away from her vacation, and then she handed off to our regular regular vet, then back to our vet #1).
Last week vet #1 handed off to the oncologist. She'll handle his respiratory thing and the oncologist will do the cancer. But first the oncologist wanted to do a second opinion on the slides. I got close to crying but did not while wrangling this.
Our regular vet is a client of Lab X, where the biopsy samples were being held. The oncologist uses Lab Y. Our regular vet is not a client of Lab Y, that needs the slides. Our regular vet said that the oncologist would handle the situation once I call them and ask for it to be done, and I gave my permission to our vet to release the slides to the oncologist. The oncologist said that they were not allowed to transfer the slides to Lab Y. I had to figure it out. Lab Y said that I needed to call my regular vet, find out where the slides were, and then...I dunno. I said that I'd pay for whatever and deliver whatever, as long as I knew what the steps were.
I called the vet. One of my friends at the front saw my caller ID and picked up. Oh thank goodness. She consulted with her manager and the manager untangled the mess. They got the slides in a few days, and on Wednesday I left work, drove to the vet, picked up the refrigerated package, took it to the oncology office (about halfway back to work), drove home and was back online working in about an hour and fifteen. The traffic gods were with me, somehow.
The next day I get home and mrguy tells me that there were actually supposed to be *two* packages of slides. The vet was sorry for the mistake and were going to drive the package to the oncologist for us.
I'm writing this down mainly because it's insane and I want to remember. But here's where it gets weird.
Our boy has a history of weird lymphatic system stuff. When he was five or six, the lymph nodes under his jaw started to swell. They took needle biopsies and weren't able to tell why they were swollen. They didn't seem to be painful but they were a bit disfiguring. They decided to remove them and biopsy and they never figured out why he had big old lymph glands.
Which brings us to today. The oncologist called yesterday to discuss the results of the second opinion on the slides. They're sure it's cancer, but that's all they know. They want to do more tests on the slides (an $800 value). Know that I have spent more than that in the last week on my kitten of gold. I asked "How would what you learn from the test change how you treat him?"
She tells me that their whole office is intrigued. As you can imagine, our boy has a fat file of info related to his crazy lumps and other medical history. She does say that this is a cancer, but the kind of cancer it appears to be moves quickly. In the month we've been dealing with it, more bumps should have been appearing. Not our boy. She thinks that it might be related to the same "disease process" that he had in his lymphatic system.
How's his appetite? Really good.
How is he feeling? Aside from the sneezing, he's feeling pretty well. The steroid nose drops are helping a bit. And he really does seem to be perking up.
What about the paw? It's healed, finally, but we have him in the cone so he doesn't rip into it again.
We've decided to watch and wait. Oncologist wants to see him in a few weeks, and we will take it from there. Gratuitous cat photos below:
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