Rhinog unwell. Advice please

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Ruth and Rhinog

Ruth and Rhinog

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Hi. We've not been here for a while. Rhinog was diagnosed Feb'09 and was on canninsulin for a month. He has been OTJ for a year now. He's 11 years old.

I took him to the vet yesterday for his routine vaccinations and unfortunately she found a mass in his abdomen. I'm gutted. He looks so healthy and is showing no signs of any pain. He's still eating/drinking normally and is as active as usual.

The vet just looked me in the eye and said she was sorry. She hasn't given me any treatment options. All she said was that they could do exploratory surgery but thinks there will only be a 1 in 10 chance of finding something operable.

So here I am again left to find out as much as I can for myself and once again I find myself turning to your extensive knowledge and kindness.

What tests should she be doing? Is surgery our only option? How do diabetic cats cope with surgery? I'm aware that the stress could bring his levels back up.

Any advice to help me make the hard decisions ahead would be gratefully received. Many thanks

Ruth and Rhinog
 
I agree with a referral. It sounds like the mass was found by palpitation (feeling) since you did not mention x-rays or ultrasound. An ultrasound and/or x-rays are in order if already not performed. Complete blood works is probably in order too.
 
I'm sorry to hear this. I agree, get to an internist for an abdominal ultrasound ASAP. Could be something bad, could be something treatable. Heck, once I saw a critical care specialist and two internists palpate a cat, agree they all felt a mass, and took him to ultrasound to find he was full of feces. (It's usually easy to tell the difference but anyone can be fooled once.) You can find a board-certified internist at acvim.org.

This reminds me, about a year and a half ago another person on the board had their vet palpate a mass, take a peek with the in-house ultrasound, declared the cat had a malignant liver tumor and gave the cat a few weeks to live, sending the person home in tears. I rather strongly urged her to seek another opinion which she did. The cat's benign liver cyst was successfully removed and the cat is still doing well today. Now I can't say that is your cat's case, too, but I certainly think further investigation is order. Please keep us posted.

PS If finances are tight, go for the ultrasound rather than the x-rays.
 
Larry and Jess have given you wonderful advice. My Yoshi had a mass that an xray (blood panel looked fined) didn't reveal much but the ultrasound did. At the same time they did a biopsy. His outcome wasn't good but the last two tests let us know much more so next steps could be decided. Hoping Rhinog has something easily removed.
 
my diabetic cat went under general anesthesia twice when she was older than your cat and did fine. so that is an option for sure. it's not right that the vet doesn't want to take this further. my vets do that to me all the time. they want to give up immediately or not do further testing and i have to PUSH them to do their freakin jobs. and get help online to try to figure out what to do likeyou are. anyway, if you could get to an internis or another vett that would be good. I don't know what other tests could be done. a needle aspirate is fairly safe i think and maybe that is something they could at least start with. good luck.
 
Thanks all for your help and advice. I spoke to a friend of mind who is a vet tech with our vet and managed to get a bit more information. She said the vet suspects a lymphoma and that's why she thinks surgery isn't much of an option.
She also gave me the impression that they would only be able to do a biopsy by full surgery not just a needle.

I'm not prepared to sit back without a firm diagnosis so I'm going to take your good advice and go for a second opinion and push for bloods and an ultrasound at the very least. This should at least give me a little more information on which to decide whether to go for surgery or not.

Thanks again for your support.

Ruth and Rhinog
 
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