Reality bites

Your cat has cancer - have a happy Thanksgiving!

*****

Well, they were a little nicer and more informative than that, but that's the gist of it. The lump on Zach's head was a mast cell tumor. Apparently we hit the jackpot - a type of tumor that is rare but (sort of) treatable in cats. We always knew you were special, buddy.

The treatment for this sort of tumor is surgical removal, and the biopsy results show that they "think" the edges of the biopsy are clear, meaning it's likely that the surgeon got all of it on the first go-round. But the standard for removal on these tumors is to cut out an area about 1cm larger than where they think the tumor is, just to make sure there aren't any mutant cells left behind to regrow and/or metastasize (oh, how I hate typing words like "tumor," "metastasize," and "biopsy" in relation to a member of our family, even if he is a cat that regularly pukes in places where I subsequently step first thing in the morning). And the biopsy doesn't have 1 cm of clean edge around the tumor, so the surgeon says to be safe he'd like to cut another chunk out of my cat's forehead.

But there's a good chance he DID already remove the whole tumor, so it's hard to say whether he really needs a second surgery or not. He seems to have responded to the first one well, with no lingering after-effects that we know of. But a larger incision - almost an inch across - means more stitches, more drugs, more chance of infection, and an even bigger facelift for our aging kitty. Not that he couldn't use the wrinkle removal, but we're going to have to start dying his beard if we want the maximum anti-aging effect.

From the stuff I can find online, it looks like even if we do remove this tumor entirely, it's likely to come back someplace else, and survival rates range from 2 months to 18 months. So maybe we'll wait a while to buy any new carpet.

Looks like Jason and I will have plenty to talk about on the way back to Ohio this weekend.