RE: Spencer and irony

[Hideyo Yamamoto]

Nina, until Kerry gets you the information, here’s a extract of information I found..   Cancer -Leukemia  or  Lymphoma Q: My cat has just been diagnosed with leukemia (blood cancer, not the virus). She is twelve years old and I was wondering what type of treatment there >could be for her.  My vet has recommended prednisone which she has been taking for a number of years for food type allergies. Her symptoms have been vague.  She has never been a very good eater only eating a 3 oz. can of IAMS a day.  Sometimes not even all of this.  Within the last month, she suddenly began to eat everything in site.  She cried all the time to eat. As it was time for her shots, I took her to the Vet Monday and mentioned her appetite.  He suspected thyroid and took blood for that ( I haven't heard back from that yet) and did a CBC.  The CBC came back with a white count of 85,000.  Another test was done the next day and sent to a pathologist where it came back at 120,000.  More than the day before.  She seems to feel fine and her eating is great. What I would like to know, is what can I do to help to prolong her life. She's a very special kitty to all of us and I would like some advice as to what can be done.   A: D- Probably the first thing to do in this situation is to confirm the presence of leukemia. Lymphoma is much more common than leukemia and can produce white blood cell counts in the range you are reporting. Lymphoma in cats is often intestinal and it is therefore hard to find, even with a very careful examination and radiographs (X-rays). Leukemia is definitely possible, it is just a lot less common. The best ways to find lymphoma are probably ultrasonagraphy and endoscopic exam of the intestinal tract. Aspiration and evaluation of bone marrow by a pathologist is a good idea since it can help differentiate between leukemia and lymphoma and also give some insight into prognosis. There are chemotherapy protocols for both lymphoma and leukemia (either chronic or acute). They may help to provide a better quality of life and longer lifespan. If your vet doesn't want to provide chemotherapy you may wish to ask for referral to a veterinary oncologist or internal medicine specialist. Chemotherapeutic agents have to be handled carefully and practitioners who will not have the opportunity to use them frequently are often put off the by the handling requirements. We are fortunate in having a specialist nearby who will handle our chemotherapy cases and so we refer them. I hope that this helps some. Mike Richards, DVM     From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nina Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 11:16 AM To: felvtalk@felineleukemia.org Subject: Re: Spencer and irony   Kerry R, Oh my goodness, what you must have gone through re-living the experience of lymphoma with City Kitty right after you lost your mom to the same thing.  It's as if City Kitty gave you the opportunity to try and extend her life to help you through your grief with your mom.  I know from your posts that you are brave and loving, this proves how strong your spirit is as well.  Blessings to you my dear. You mentioned a "special blood test" to determine lymphoma.  Is there any way you could give me specific information on this?  My vets obviously are not aware, or maybe they don't believe that confirmation is possible with a blood test, or they surely would have suggested it already.  My appointment with Spencer is tomorrow, I hate to rush you, but if you could let me know asap, it would be greatly appreciated.  Do you think you might have the info buried in CK's paperwork somewhere?  Could you contact the vet that helped you at the time?  Perhaps you could give me the vet's contact info and I could try to find out what test she ran on CK's blood that convinced her it was lymphoma.  I hate the idea of putting Spencer through a bunch of stressful tests unless it's absolutely necessary.  When I approach my vet with any suggestions, it's best to have something besides, "someone said" to back it up. Spencer is doing incredibly well.  I can't believe the difference the dex shots have made.  He's still not acting like a well kitty, but I'm back to saying good night, instead of good bye when I close my eyes at night. Thank you for your help and concern and thank you for sharing your's and CK's experience with all of us, Nina Kerry Roach wrote: Hi Nina, I hope Spencer is feeling better today..I have been trying to catch up on reading, but as usual, I'm behind..I did read this about the possibilty of Spencer having lymphoma..There really isn't too much expense to it to find out if it is lymphoma and you don't have to have sonograms or mri's.  My internal med specialist did a special blood test that confirmed it on my City Kitty ( Inky's mom) and that was in 1997.  The sonograms and exploratory surgery that my kitty had only would show where the masses were located and how large...She had the one in the middle of the intestines medistinal or something like that and it is inoperable. So she did chemo as I mentioned in my email to you.  You can do sonograms to see if the chemo is working...I guess the real expense is...the treatments you do and continuing xrays and sonograms.  My vet could tell by just feeling as it shrunk so I chose not to do sonograms as it would only stress her and mainly the monthly blood work would tell us what was going on with most things..She was on 20mg pred daily the rest of her life..and she had almost a yr. We had to stop the chemo cause her blood counts were getting too low from the chemo and at that point you could do no more at the time.. Now with some other new meds on the market there may be a better chance of longer remissions with epogen and those types meds to help with the anemia.  It was odd that when I found out that my kitty had lymphoma..my Mom had passed away 1 month prior to that and she had lymphoma...My kitty was treated with the same drugs that my Mom was going to get in Houston..Almost all the tests and things they did to my Mom in 96 and up until her passing in 97 were the same as my kitty was getting..So it was really a strange ordeal to live through.. Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience with you.  Also, Buster had a very rapid form of it...lymphoblastic lymphoma  if you remember he got sick in Feb and passed on March 7.  The lymph nodes in his neck swelled so much just over night that we never even had time to do anything for him.  I had him to the vet on Fri and noticed the enlarged nodes on Sat. took him back so she aspirated it and sent it to Texas A and M vet school.  We got the results on Tues and he passed just a few hours after that..so we had no time for anything..He was doing ok with no apparent signs until the last few days..That was so awful.. Let me know if I can be of any help, Our prayers are with you guys, Kerry, Bandy and Inky Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail.