Breathing harder, drinking more, eating less.

We decided that it's time.

Trouble breathing

The tumor is now pushing to close off her second nasal passage, so Kitty is snorting and breathing very loudly now. She's back to drinking lots of water. I've also started to give her baths because it's very difficult for her grooming to keep up with the fluids that keep coming out. We know her time is coming up soon, yet it's hard to know exactly when because she still has so many social moments and purrs every night.

Still a trooper

Kitty cat is looking as beat up as our bathroom lately, but she's still hanging on in there. One nostril is completely closed up by the tumor, and the other one is getting pretty close also. The growth seems to be spreading at the bridge of her nose, to that area has been getting wider apart as well as lumpier. Left eye is a bit watery and squinty, and she continues to leak out her forehead. We're going to start giving her paw baths now because she's having trouble keeping them clean with her regular routine. On the eating end, she still has an appetite for hand-feed babyfood and has been holding steady at 5.4 lbs. She still sleeps with us and purrs and we're just taking it day by day.

From Bump to Bald spot

This photo shows kitty's head bump 1 week after it emerged.

The day before, I had taken her to the cat oncologist to get a second opinion on what it was. (Her normal vet thought it was inflammed tissue, but the antibiotics didn't seem to subside the bump.) The oncologist thought that it was her sinus fluids, built up from her nasal passage being clogged. There was really nothing the oncologist could do because she didn't want to risk infecting the lump by taking a sample.

Fast forward to the day of the photo. Nature took its own course when Cutie Cat popped the lump all on her own and drained the fluids through her forehead. I'll spare you the details.

Over the next days, the lump would build back up again, get drained, and the process would repeat. It's been surprisingly efficient, and short of a bald spot that formed around the drainage hole, kitty is doing well... social, alert, and eating regularly.

Current weight: 5.4 lbs
Medications: none

Antibiotics and Painkillers

The vet doesn't think the forehead lump is from fluids. She thinks might be infection of the tissue and prescribed some oral anitibiotics and painkillers. Both are stinky and makes kitty lose her appetite.

The lump grew pretty large by the end of yesterday and shrank a bit overnight, so she's kind of back the same lump size as yesterday, the first morning.

Current medications: .5ml Clavamox drops (Amoxicillin Trihydrate/Clavulanate Potassium) twice per day for the next 10 days. .25ml Oral Buprenorphine once per day, then dropping down to once every 2-3 days for a total of 8 syringefuls.

Weight: 5.8 lbs

Bump on the Head

Cutie cat woke up this morning with a big soft bump on her forehead and a little bit of blood at her left nostril, which is the same side as her tumor. The bump is soft and squishy so we suspect it's sinus fluids which can't drain out because of the growing tumor. I placed a call to the vet and am waiting to hear back on what to do. Bump aside, she's still purring, social, and eating well.

Eating like a little piggy

Last night I gave the last of the antibiotics to cutie cat by oral syringe and I'm sure she's happy not to have to go through that 3x a day anymore. She's been pretty much back to her old self prior to being sick. Her appetite picked up again and she's eating like a little piggy, snorting away and finishing whatever portions of milk with catfood I give her. I'm hoping at this rate, she'll be able to pack on some weight before any more complications from her tumor.

Current weight: 6.0 lbs
Medications: none
Currently eating: TJ's Turkey and Giblets watered down with lactose-free 2% milk

Feeling social again.

Things have been rough the past week with cutie cat in pain and getting weaker. Last night was a turning point for the better. When we got home after dinner, she was sitting up on the sofa (vs. hiding under the covers) and almost ready to scold us for being out. She seemed to have more energy, stayed awake, and purred quite a bit as she took turns between going from one lap to another over the course of the night. This morning her appetite was good and ate and drank without too much coaxing. She's also been sleeping in a more social position - one that stubbornly says "I want to be on you" instead of "I want to be curled up alone". We've gone through one full bottle of antibiotics now and have started a second.

Update

The antibiotics seem to be reducing some of the infection. She continues to have trouble eating and sometimes has trouble breathing also because of the growing tumor. Just a week ago, she would happily slurp away at her Trader Joe's Turkey and Giblets catfood and now just turns her head away at it because even that is too lumpy and gets stuck in her mouth. I've switched her to Gerber babyfood and lactose-free milk. Apparently babyfood must be a popular thing to feed pets because the cashier asked me if I was buying for a kitty or a doggy. At first I took a bit of offense that this stranger automatically assumed I wasn't a mother, but then I realized that real moms probably don't buy only the babyfood flavors that are all meat.

She also has blackish, liquidy poop, which is a sign of ulcers.

Infection and Antibiotics

We believe kitty's got an infection. She refused to eat, hid under the covers all day, and wasn't purring even when hugged. I managed to sneak a peek inside her mouth while she was grooming herself and saw that the entire left part of her mouth was red from where her teeth used to be, and swollen (not sure how much from the tumor and how much from an infection). She's definitely been having trouble eating and makes little snorty noises when trying to swallow her food. I got some liquid antibiotics yesterday from the vet which seems to be making her feel better.

Weight: 6.0 lbs
Medication: ClinDrops Clindamycin Hydrochloride Oral Liquid Antibiotic, 1 ml every 8 hours

Leaning Cat

You know how most cats are graceful and elegant? I don't think mine ever learned how to sit up straight.

Anatomy of a cat's tumor

I'm visual, so here's a diagram to explain what's happening...

PURPLE = the area of the tumor. Most of it is in the cheek and is gradually spreading towards the right side of this diagram, where the jaw and eye are.
PURPLE X's = teeth that have been extracted or loosened on their own. She may have lost some more upper teeth that we don't know about because when the vet looked in her mouth today, she didn't see any teeth that would create any sort of grinding with the bottom teeth.
ORANGE = the jawbone that the tumor is rubbing against. You'll notice from the arrows that the wider her mouth is open, the greater these two areas come into contact.

Oncologist Visit

Cutie cat's tumor has been growing and causing complications in her mouth. She's completely on canned catfood now and recently has been making a crunching noise when she opens her mouth wide. Crunching noises with soft food doesn't jive, so this morning we took her back to the oncologist for a checkup. My guess was that her teeth were grinding together from having their position shifted, but it turned out to be her jawbone. As she opens her mouth, the enlarged portion of her tumor rubs against part of her jaw. Believe it or not, this was actually good news because it mean that my cat 1) didn't need to be sedated for an x-ray, 2) did not have to have any teeth extracted, and 3) did not have to risk infection or weight loss from having teeth extracted.

All things considered, the vet was very impressed with how well kitty's been doing. (Remember that back in December, the prognosis was 1-2 months and it's now 7 months later.) Despite some gradual weight loss, cutie cat still has her appetite, grooms herself regularly, and is very content and interactive.

Current weight: 5.96 lbs
Current favorite food: Trader Joe's Turkey & Giblets

Struggling with the in's and out's.

Penny is still struggling with getting enough to eat. I've been trying to feed her 4x per day because she doesn't eat very much in any one sitting, and doesn't seem to like eating the dry food that's left out for her. She's also had some difficulty with constipation these past few days. The poor cat went and sat in her litterbox 3 times that I noticed on Sunday, before she was finally successful and got to bury something.

Current weight: 6.4 lbs.

What if...

I haven't posted in a long time, because everything has been holding steady. Aside from coughing up some yellow liquid this morning, Penny seems to still be happy and actually has been quite energetic since I started feeding her kitten food.

I do wonder whether I'm feeding her or her tumor though. Kitten food is higher in calories and I hoped that would help her gain weight back, but nope...she's still skinny. I hope that the extra calcium in the food is not fueling the tumor growth.

Here's a little photo experiment I tried to see how the tumor has affected her face:

Current weight fluctuates between 6.6 to 7.0 lbs.

Poop mystery solved.

Penny has always been a good communicator. "Pet me," "feed me," "let me in the closet." Whatever she wants, she finds a way to stubbornly let us know.

Awhile back, I discovered a piece of her poop in the middle of the kitchen floor and was convinced that my husband had somehow carelessly gotten it on his shoe and tracked it over there. When I accused him, he denied it and then accused me of doing it. Well, after some close scrutiny of his shoe and my sock, we determined that Penny did it all by herself. She never was very good at "making it" into her litter box, but it was highly uncharacteristic that something would end up so far away from the box. Turned out that she was trying to tell us to clean her litter box - very effective considering that the little present she left was in a location that could not have been missed.

There was a bit of mystery as to how she did it though. I mean, did she actually "go" in the middle of the floor, or move something over from her box? This week, the mystery was solved when David caught her in the act. She went to the bathroom as usual back at her box, and then dragged herself with her front paws, while in sitting position with her rear legs up! And what was left behind was, well, left behind. Mystery solved.

Current weight: 7.0 lbs.

Farewell, Tiny.

This past week I've been really thankful that Penny has been so stable. She's still a skinny little cat, but has been happy, energetic, and even seems to be better on the sneezes, lesions, and bothersome mouth pain from the tumor. No news is definitely good news for her.

On the other spectrum, the picture above is actually of cancer cousin Tiny, back when he was healthy. This is how I remember him. Tiny's intestinal lymphoma had made him very sick and weak in the 2 weeks since the family found out. He was in obvious pain and barely hanging on, so last Saturday, he was put to rest. Bye-bye, big guy. We'll miss you.

Eating in bed.

My husband asked a good question..."Is it still a 'surprise feeding' when she comes to expect it?"

Penny's been pretty stable this week. She eats 2-3 times a day in bed and supplements with visits to her bowl. The funny thing is that she will refuse to eat her canned food in the kitchen, but 5 minutes later will happily eat it all up if I give her the same bowl in bed. (Yes, she continues to be an unusual cat.) Her lesions seem to be healing and the sneezes have died down. At night her energy level is high, too.

As for cousin cat, Tiny, he's not doing quite so well. His weight has dropped another 2 pounds and the family is having him treated with steroids and other injections to keep him going a bit longer. I can't believe he's as small as Penny now. Just 2 weeks ago he was a big fat cat!

Penny's current weight: 6.8 lbs
Tiny's weight: 6.5 to 7.5 lbs, depending on the scale

How to Surprise Feed a Cat.

1) Start with a sleeping cat. Curled up and under the covers is good because she won't see it coming.
2) Water down some canned catfood and put into a little bowl.
3) Sneak up on the cat and shove the bowl right under her face. This step is especially easy when the kitty is deaf.

As cutie cat wakes up, she smells food and instantly starts to lick it up. No need to get up or even move her body. Is she lazy? Yes. Spoiled? Probably. Weak? Not anymore. This method has worked well for feeding Penny this past week.

Current weight: still 6.8 lbs, but with much more energy

Thinking of Tiny.

Today's post is less about Penny than it is for another cat named Tiny. Tiny is 12 years old and belongs to my sister-in-law's family. I guess that makes Penny and Tiny "cousins" in a way.

Tiny is also a tabby cat with white markings, however his normal weight is a hefty 12-13 lbs. Within the last week, he dropped 4 lbs. and suddenly lost strength to climb over anything, including the lip of his litter box. The vet discovered a mass and had Tiny sent over to the VMS, the same place that Penny went to see a cat oncologist. We were very sad to hear last night that Tiny was diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma. Without treatment, he only has a couple of weeks left. The family decided to give him one dose of chemotherapy plus steroids to hopefully prolong Tiny's life by another month or two. They'll know on Friday whether this was successful. In the meantime, Tiny is back home and still purring.

Two separate instances of cat cancer occurring at the same time in our extended family has truly been quite a shock. Our nephew Coby came up with a great idea when he said, "we should have lots of parties for Tiny and Penny so that they can be happy while they are alive." We'll be keeping Tiny in our thoughts.

In the meantime, Penny holds steady at 6.8 lbs. and she takes to supplemental feedings well using the "surprise method".