Question About Gi Lymphoma

[Timmer]

I just lost my cat Timmer on Friday.
He caught a mouse in the house on November 16th. I found out because he threw up and I was cleaning it up and thought, this looks weird, then discovered a mouse head in the vomit! I found and sealed up the holes in the basement where they were coming in. Timmer's stool looked weird of course and I called the vet. I took Tim in for blood work and a stool sample. He was checked for parasites and had a full blood work up. Fine. But Tim was never the same again and started having loose stools with blood at the end. He was diagnosed with colitis, put on an antibiotic and prednisolone. Fine. But... that didn't work. On Christmas Eve I had him in the ER because he was so constipated he was pushing so hard he was falling over and in pain. Enemas didn't work. I took him to the vet on 12-26 and they sedated him and manually pulled out the stool. I thought OK, fine. Next day very lethargic. My vet told me get him up to the one clinic in town that had a GI specialist. Timmer was sedated, cleaned out again and had a colonoscopy and ultrasound. The GI specialist diagnosed him with IBD and put him on a full dose of prednisolone and chemotherapy. Also, vitamin B12 shots I gave him at home here. The Chemo was liquid that I gave him every 72 hours. He only got worse. This was not quality life. His struggle to move his bowels was painful to watch and so hard for him to go through. He was such a proud bengal tom cat. So gorgeous. So loving.
When I called the vet friday he told me he stood by my decision 100% to let him go. He said, "Nancy, I have to believe something else was going with this cat, like GI lymphoma. He never responded to the meds when he should have." I guess I'm confused with all the testing done why no one saw that. Any ever deal with this?

 

[jen]

I believe the symptoms are similar between IBD and GI lymphoma. My cats vet isn't exactly sure which one my cat has without a biopsy which I opt not to do, but I was able to basically stabilize her vomitting and diarrhea for now. Treatment is also similar. To the best of my knowledge you and your vet/the specialist did all you could really do with chemo and all. Lymphoma is very hard to come back from and hard to stabilize the cat once they get really bad. Unfortunately the cat had probably been sick for awhile but it wasn't obvious until the symptoms worsened as they hide their discomfort as much as possible. I highly doubt the mouse had anything to do with it unless the mouse had been poisoned and there was something along those lines going on when your cat ate it.

 

[jen]

Did you have a necropsy done?

 

[Timmer]

Hi Jen, thanks for your response. I appreciate it. No autopsy was done.

Right after Christmas when Tim had to be sedated and manually flushed out. The vet who did that procedure said his rectum prolapsed and as she was working it back in she saw a very weird cobblestone lesion that had what looked like white tentacles branching off it -- she's never seen before in her life.
When he had the colonoscopy the GI specialist did a biopsy and told me there was no cancer and that the colon had a cobblestone appearance. She said she never saw any lesion like the other vet saw. They don't believe that the mouse had anything to do with it either. It may have exacerbated what was really going on, tho. He did have swollen lymph nodes but she said that could have been from the illness. He also had a chest xray before the procedure and there was a spot on his lungs which she said was inconclusive.

I think back to, oh, maybe August or early September, I noticed his stool at times had a really bad odor. And when he didn't feel good, he wouldn't cover his poop, like he wanted to tell me, see, I don't feel good and smell this. Well, I wasn't about to run him to the vet because his poop smelled bad, but....
I also noticed sometimes he would be coughing out of the blue now and then. again, I didn't want to run him to the vet because he coughed.
And then another thing, sometimes he would be walking and suddenly stop and flick out his back foot and lick it. I don't know what that was about. Maybe he had a pins and needle sensation.

When he went in for his annual check up in October the vet said he had lost a pound and a half in a year. He said that was a concern so we did a full panel workup and it was clean. OK, moving on to one month to the November mouse incident, our vet was on vacation at one point so we saw someone else in the practice. When she weighed him she said "he's lost a little more weight. I'm concerned." Then we dealt with the colitis or what we thought was the issue.
So, perhaps the weight loss and smelly bowel movements, cough, were indicators of cancer.

Maybe I am playing the guilt card right now in my mourning. Thinking of all the things perhaps were possible clues and I didn't pick up on. He was fine otherwise. Playful, eating great, drinking more water, just as loving as ever. This has all happened so fast, within a matter of weeks.

Maybe it's like all the women out there who didn't know they had ovarian cancer til it was too late, or people who have pancreatic cancer and have weeks to live. What do you think?

I hope it goes well with your kitty. Just love her up as much as you can. Give her kisses for me!