Nini Love

Nini had her oncology visit a few days ago. The doctor was very sweet and knowledgeable and we had a good chat about Nini. She is not recommending chemo. She stated the statistics (that I already found through this site), that 40% of cats with osteosarcoma will get another tumor, usually within a year or two. But given Nini’s age (16 years), there are more risks with pursuing chemo. For years she’s had slightly elevated kidney values, indicative of very early old age kidney disease. And chemo might create more problems with her kidneys than it might solve with her cancer. She said it’s more likely that Nini will pass on from something else before her cancer comes back.

To anyone reading this who’s gone through an osteosarcoma diagnosis with a senior cat, I’d love to get feedback. What do you think about not doing chemo? Is it ok to not do it? Anyone who did chemo and think it gave their cat more years? Anyone who regrets doing it? Should I get a second opinion? Honestly I’m a little relieved that it’s not for certain that we have to go down the chemo road. Nini’s had a lot of health issues the past few years, and I’m not super eager to put her through chemo.

On a good note – she does not have any indications of diabetes in her blood or urine. Yay! So relieved about that. She had a few very elevated blood glucose levels while she was in the emergency clinic, so they were a little worried about diabetes. But thank goodness we can cross that off the list of more potential health issues that Nini might have.

The doctor actually seemed more concerned about Nini’s irritable bowel disease, which she was diagnosed with a few years ago. I know it’s not tripawd related, so I won’t go into it too much, but there are signs that it might be progressing, and could lead to small cell lymphoma, another type of cancer. Geesh! Cancer from all angles! So that’s my latest point of worry for Nini. We have an appointment with an internist a few weeks from now. And hopefully we can get Nini on a good path to recovery with that.

In more directly related tripawd news – Nini is continuing to adjust well. It’s been 3 weeks since her surgery. She’s up and down her stairs to the bed like a champ. And she can jump up on shorter things, like the chest at the foot of our bed, or her lounge chair outside. She’s less active than before her surgery but I think that might be largely related to the weather. She just wants to snuggle and be cozy under the covers if there isn’t any sun outside. But I also need to remember that she is still recovering from a very major surgery! She’s mostly sleeping well at night, although we had a few nights where she insisted on getting some 2am snuggles with my partner. But at this point we’ll take snuggles with Nini whenever we can get them!