Benji's Story
by Lynn
I had noticed that Benji was eating less and less, and often just licking the gravy off of wet food, spitting out dry food, etc. He also appeared increasingly skinny to all of us. Last Tuesday he refused to eat at all. Suspecting a cracked or abscessed tooth, I made an appointment with the Vet for last Thursday.
Wednesday morning, I found three areas of vomit (mostly liquid) the color of his dry food. About an hour later, I heard him vomiting and found him in the kitchen, where he had vomited up bright yellow bile. I immediately called the Vet and said I needed to bring him in that day, as this was obviously more than a dental problem.
When I arrived with him at the Vet's office and she examined him, she said she felt a firmer area in his intestines about 2-3 inches long. We talked about any foreign objects he could have ingested (I couldn't think of any), and she said it might just be stool that hadn't passed through. She decided to do an X-ray and blood workup immediately, and keep him overnight to do a second one in the morning. If it was stool, it should have moved by then. If not, the ultrasound technician was due in that morning and they'd perform an ultrasound. He had lost almost 4 lbs since his visit the year before - down from 14.8 lbs to 11 lbs.
Since the X-ray was unchanged the next morning, the ultrasound was performed, and the two Vets and the ultrasound technician conferred and determined that he had lymphosarcoma of the small cell variety. There was no tumor, just a general thickening of the pancreas in the area that the Vet had felt on examination, and his lymph glands and spleen were enlarged. The blood test results revealed elevated protein levels and white blood count. Since needle aspiration is not possible with small cell, a biopsy would mean cutting him open and biopsying the three affected sites, and the Vet felt that he would not survive this in his weakened condition, but she was 99% certain of her diagnosis, having seen this many times before.
My first reaction when she called me was utter shock and devastation. He is just 4 years old, and I had lost a cat to another type of cancer right before I adopted Benji and his litter mate, Tucker, but that kitty was 13. Benji is still a baby in my eyes.
The Vet told me that this type of cancer is very treatable, and that remission is achieved in almost all cases, with many cats gaining back all of their weight loss and actually thriving - some for more than a year. She explained that the protocol to be used would consist of prednisolone, an appetite stimulant, and Chlorambucil (which I now know is also called Leukarin). When I went in to pick him up, she was able to supply me with the prednisolone and the appetite stimulant, both of which she had in stock, in trans-dermal form. She ordered the Chlorambucil in a chewable tuna-flavored treat form from a compounding pharmacy. As instructed, I administered the predisolone once a day, and the appetite stimulant once every 12 hours. His appetite returned almost immediately, and was voracious. He was jumping on our laps and begging for our food while we ate (which he has never done), cleaning his plate and part of his brother's, and bouncing off the walls with energy. The doctor told me I could ratchet down the appetite stimulant, so I decreased it to once every 24 hours and he has continued eating well, but not as frantically. I picked up the Chlorambucil yesterday, and he got his first dose of that this morning. She'd like me to try taking away the appetite stimulant to see if the Prednisolone by itself is enough of an appetite stimulant, and I plan to do that tomorrow, and only use the stimulant on an "as needed" basis.
It's now been a week and a day since I picked him up at the Vet, and he already looks better to me - filling out a bit. I'm praying that he tolerates the chemo well and doesn't start shunning food again at some point. He is not the type of cat that would be easy to pill or force feed. I can't even clip his claws! He becomes like a greased eel in his frenzy to get away, and can always squirm out of our arms.
I am hopeful that with youth on his side, he'll have a long remission. I am also planning to add coriolus versicolor mushroom supplements to his food, as they have the effect of stabilizing the immune system and supporting chemo to eradicate cancerous tissue. I've cleared this with the Vet, and she's fine with it as long as I wait a week or two before adding it.
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