Prince Vince

This week we are doing very well. 🙂 Last week was a little worrisome.

Last Thursday was Vinny’s 5 week tripawd anniversary (yay), and also his second chemo treatment.

About a week before that, he started getting a swollen lip, which looked like it was infected, or something even more sinister. It was big, red, black, and white. It didn’t seem to bother him what-so-ever, but it was very concerning to me. We had it checked out at our chemo day and they weren’t exactly sure what it was, at first glance. A new cancer was among one of the possibilities (scary!).

Luckily, our amazing medical oncologist looked back into Vinny’s medical history from our regular general practitioner and saw that Vinny has a similar issue with his lip a few years back. Before our visit, I had recall something like this, but was unsure of the specifics and what treatment course we used. The files showed that at that time, we started with an injectible antibiotic and it cleared the issue up right away. This time, before doing anything drastic, we decided to start by doing the same thing. Remarkably, it started to clear up the very next day! 🙂 And now 4 days later, it is pretty much completely back to normal. I was so scared for my big boy. What a relief! 🙂

Aside from the infected lip issue, his chemo treatment and overall health-check went otherwise very well. All his vital signs were normal, and he lost a healthy amount of weight, due to his weight-loss regime, which is wonderful! They also did not detect the heart murmur that they heard last time – yay! This is very welcome news. Seems it was just a weird one-off thing… This can happen with cats apparently.

His blood work and urinalysis were good except they detected slightly elevated levels of eosinophils in his blood. This is sometimes a sign of worms. We agreed that due to his lifestyle and where we live, this was probably unlikely, but opted for a 5 day treatment of Panacur, just in case. The medication is inexpensive and there are no side effects or downsides, so why not. Since then, I’ve read that elevated eosinophils may also appear in the blood due to allergies. I think he may be allergic to the scented cat litter deodorizer I occasionally use, so I have stopped using it, just in case.

We also received the histopathology report from the amputated leg, confirming it was indeed a hemangiosarcoma. Wonderfully, the report also showed and that all of the tumour was successfully removed with amputation, and with perfect margins. 🙂

Next chemo treatment comes in three weeks. At this point, after all he’s been through, I know anything can happen. Crappy things don’t always give you a warning that they are coming, so it’s important to not take the healthy times when everything is alright and he is feeling good for granted. I now just consider every time he comes home from the hospital again to be a major victory and cause for celebration.

Vinny is truly a trooper. It seems like his whole life, and still now, he has been constantly faced by one medical issue after an another. Other than routine visits, my other cat has never had a single out of the norm trip to the vet. Vinny had been there so many times I can’t count. But he just takes it in stride. He is such a happy guy… and it makes me so happy. He just wants to hang out with me, kiss me, purr and eat yummy food, haha. 🙂 He is sitting on my lap right now, licking my arm. I am very lucky to have such a great kitty!

Being cute 🙂

This is his amp-side. As you can see, it’s looking great! Fur is coming back well and the incision is no longer visible at all anymore.

Biiiiiig Yawwwwn. 🙂 haha

Bros – Hanging out. 🙂 <3 <3 <3

A better photo of Princess today – Cautiously posing, haha. 🙂 Pretty girl. <3 She jumped up away from the camera half a second after I snapped this.