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Shiria | 9 years ago
Hello,

I’m From Germany And I Have A Queastion Regarding My Ca. 25 Year Old Cat…

Hello,

I’m from Germany and I have a queastion regarding my ca. 25 year old cat. Her true age is unknown as we got her from a shelter. She was in good health and my vet couldn’t believe her age.
She was diagnosed with pancratic cancer in October 2014. It was a random find, as she didn’t show any symtoms.
It was already around 5x4cm in size and I decided for surgery with the option of putting her down if it looked to bad.

The tumor was a solid mass in the pancreas. Small nodules were found in the surrounding tissue, but alls the other organs looked fine. The tumor was removed, which was easy duw to not being connected too much to the surrounding tissue.
My vet told me that the prognosis was still poor, with most patiens not surviving more than 6 months after diagnosis.

Whisky woke up normally and had no problems with eating/digesting afterwards. She was totally fine until after 10 months – in July 2015 – a new small tumour was found, around the size of a cherry.
We decided to wait how fast it will grow, as she still showd no signs or symptoms.
Las Friday on August the 8 I could feel that the tumour had grown fast – now back to old size. I drove to the vet and he confirmed that.
I knew if it grew so fats she would only have around one month more if it would start to cause her pain, so I decided for surgery again. She still was fine, always wanting no live and don’t show signs of old age.

This time it looked bad. Upon opening her up she already hat blood in her abdomen. The tumour was necrotic, starting with „tyrosis“ and half of the pancras was infected. The tumor started to fall apart when he touched it. Addiotionally not only th surrounding tissue had metastases, also the peritoneum now had some nodules. The other organs still looked fine. My vet said it looked very bad, normally he would put her down now, as the progmosis now was more than poor.

I still wanted to try it, and he did his best. Sadly she died during the wake up phase. Most likely it started bleeding again and she died of blood loss.

My vet told me that she would have died during the next days either way due to blood loss and infection during the next days. I now ask myself if she would still life if I didn’t have decided for surgery.
Or is what my vet said right and she would have died the next days either way, with that thing falling apart inside her. I trust my vet, but I have the feeling that I’m resposible for her death, that I have killed her somehow.

If needed I can provide pictures of the masses.

Thanks a lot for reading this wall of text!

Shiria

2 Responses

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  1. Kelly Furgason

    HI Shiria,
    First, very sorry to hear your cat died. My thoughts and sympathies are with you.

    When a pet dies like this, it is normal for us to think it was our fault, or something we could have prevented. It sounds like you went above and beyond with vet care and did everything you could have done for your cat. Surgery is always risky, but so is choosing to not do it and see what happens.

    I’d take comfort in knowing that you gave this kitty a longer life by helping her the best you could.
    I’m sure that your cat would have wanted to have every option at living and it sounds like that is what you gave her. It sounds like from what your vet found inside of her, that she was very very sick. Like you said, she seemed fine and didn’t show any signs of old age. But animals are not like people, they hide illness very well till the bitter end. She sounds like she was a wonderful kitty.
    I’m sorry things didn’t work out and sorry for your loss,
    ~kelly

  2. Shiria Post author

    Thanks a lot for your answer! It helps me a bit… In my head I know that most vets would have put her down after that finding inside of her… and that alone from what it looked like it had to be painful.

    But still, there is that voice that tells me “you should have taken her home and made her the best days she ever had”. She would still be here,,, I could still cuddle her, hear her voice, feel her next to me. Yes maybe she would have died the next time either way, but I would have time to say good bye. While this maybe is true, how would she have died? Alone and in pain while I’m at work? That is not what I would want for her…
    And than there is that tiny voice that tells me, that maybe her body would have found a way to build down that tumor and stop the bleeding, that maybe she would have weeks or months…

    My head knows that the possibility for this is near zero… Maybe making her some good last days would have been the most logic decision… maybe I would have felt better… Or maybe I would ask myself then, that she maybe would have survived surgery if I had just tried it.

    I guess no matter what my decision would have been, I would have felt guilty… I just want to know if my decision was right. And there is no definitive way of telling that…

    Thanks so much for reading my long text… It somehow helps me to talk to people that udnerstand the pain…

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  1. Kelly

    Hi Charlotte,

    Mice usually are jumpy/twitchy but without seeing your mouse, it’s hard to say what is going on. It could just be a normal mouse moving.

    If she’s eating and drinking she is probably fine. YES, mice , all mice make nests, usually quite large one’s too. Add some paper towel or toilet paper tubes and she will have a ball shredding them up. Sounds like she may be pregnant. If she is, you will soon find baby mice! They are only pregnant for a few weeks before having babies and they can have around 7-14 babies.

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3 Responses

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