Have you had experience with a cat on chemotherapy? How hard was it on the cat and on the people taking care of the cat? Was it very costly? Are you glad you did it? How about radiation therapy experiences?
My cat just had an injection site fibrosarcoma removed from her hind leg. Margins appeared clear but thin, due to the difficulty of removing more tissue. She’s 12 years old, overweight (17.5 pounds), and has very bad arthritis and joint damage in her hips and elbows. For these reasons she was judged a poor candidate for removal of the entire leg. X-rays of her chest are negative for metastases.
Surgical follow-up was this morning, and the surgeon says surgery went well, but recurrence is fairly likely. She opined that the cat is more likely to die from this cancer than from other causes, and thinks we should consult an oncologist. She talked more about chemo than radiation therapy, but that’s a possibility too.
I think we are likely to go along with all vet recommendations, but I’m trying to wrap my head around what we’re signing up for. As a side note, treatment has cost $6000 so far. I like the veterinarian practice and have access to lots of information; a sense of what we’re about to go through is what I really want right now.
Chemotherapy sucks. It sucks so much that many humans, given the option, choose to pass on it and just let the cancer take its course. It’s a question of weighing quantity of life versus quality.
For humans, we place an unusually high value on quantity of life, and so chemotherapy is sometimes considered the least-bad option. For an animal, I have a hard time seeing how it’s ever the best option.
Maybe, if the vet believes that a short stint of chemo, maybe a few months, is likely to completely destroy the cancer, and after that, the cat can be expected to live for several more years with a high quality of life, maybe in that case it would be worthwhile. But the outlook for chemo is very rarely that rosy.
I went through it with my dog but it was hemangiosarcoma meaning there was nothing to remove to cure it. He had his spleen removed and they found the cancer there but by then it was already in his blood. Since he was “only” 10 and was a happy, healthy boy as soon as the spleen came out, they gave me the option of doing chemo to keep him going for 6-8 months, or just letting it go in which case he’d pass sooner. Whatever I did, he was going to pass from the chemo.
I went with the chemo, and he lived for 10 months. It was a good 10 months. I had done a ton of grieving when he was sick with his spleen issue, thinking I would suddenly lose him that day. I decided we’d have the best 10 months ever and we did, every day me knowing it could be his last day. When he did go it was slightly easier than when my previous dog had died. Easier for me to make the call, to take him in and have him put down. I didn’t cry every day for a month like I had done the last time, because I had already been sad for 10 months.
The oncologist was great and was VERY frank about options. She didn’t push me into anything. She told the costs up front and the prognosis.
Chemo itself was fine. I guess some pets, if they’re chill, tolerate it well and just get the infusion and go on with their day. My Grady was super super high anxiety so he had to be drugged a lot just to relax in a room without me. It was the anxiety meds that really effed him up. But by the next day he was always fine.
I think all told his treatment was $10k. Maybe a bit higher. This is in the Cleveland area, for a 65lb dog so YMMV.
Definitely go talk to the oncologist and get the full scoop on your options and what the experience will be like. In my experience, in the 3 veterinarian ERs I’ve been to (the oncologist was part of a veterinary ER) they are not hurting for money and not trying to push you into treatment.
I have a friend who is in the same life situation as me, same age, same devoted love for her dogs. Her boy was diagnosed not long before mine and she made the decision to let him go and not do the treatment. She didn’t want to spend the money. It’s a valid decision too.