A Caturday Post: Simone and the Vet
I have to start out by saying that our geriatric cat, Simone (age 16+), a street rescue at the age of two, has a great vet, but no vet is all-knowing or always right. Ten months ago, Simone developed a cyst on her back. It filled and drained, filled and drained. Then, it just filled, and her vet drained it -- twice. She told me I could drain it at home if it got too back (bigger than the size of a golf ball), but she did not want to do surgery. Eventually, as could be expected, the cyst, in its drained state, became infected. An antibiotic injection helped, but the infection did not totally disappear. Orbax did no good at all. The vet did not want to remove it surgically because of Simone's age, but having to clean a pus discharge every two hours just did not cut it as a long-term solution. I asked the vet what reason other than age she had for not removing the cyst; there were none. She thought that Simone would not survive surgery because she was so passive during her exams. What the vet did not know is that rather than hissing, swatting, and batting when scared, Simone turns 100% passive, flattens her body to try to disappear, and actually covers her eyes. Not a typical cat reaction. Having read up on cysts online (with, of course, mixed information as occurs whenever one looks up things online), I argued for the surgery; the vet ran blood tests on Simone's organs and found that all were functioning normally. Although she did not think any malignancy was involved, the vet sent the mass to pathology -- and it came back as apocrine ductal carcinoma. Cancer!
Argh! So, now we are back with the wonderful oncologist who treated Sula and Snyezhka. The first appointment is on Monday; I am hoping that she will say that we have not delayed too long. With cancer (for cats or for people), that is a big problem.
Why do I tell this story? Because there are some take-aways that could pertain to many people, ah, cats. Such as:
Whenever something is not normal, it is important to get at underlying reason, not just the facts about what it is but also why it is.
In such cases, it is important to explore all options available (palliative-type care, surgery, etc.) and to conduct research independently of the vet.
It is always important not to delay implementing the best-possible option.
It is very important to follow one's instincts; more often than not, they are right.
It is important to get a second opinion where the vet disagrees with you or you disagree with the vet.
As for the picture, Simone could not manage the cone of shame. She spilled her food; she tipped over her water dish; she could not fit into the litter robot. She gave up eating, drinking, or peeing as long as she had the cone. We replaced it with a more comfortable collar that fit everywhere and allowed her to see everything. She much preferred her pillow of protection! And life returned to almost-normal (well, there were those stitches...which came out yesterday.)
For more Caturday posts, click HERE.
Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter
Follow MSI Press on X, Face Book, and Instagram.
in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book?
Contact editor@msipress.com.
Want an author-signed copy of this book?
Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25)
and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.
You can!
Find their contact information on our Authors' Pages.
Comments
Post a Comment