Sylvester's Story
by Andrea Nagy
Sylvester was almost due for his yearly exam when I noticed he wasn't eating very much. So I brought him in early and they did an exam on him. They felt something in his belly and an X-Ray confirmed a mass in his intestines. They then did an ultrasound and realized that it was resectable so we opted for surgery. This happened on a Saturday and on Tuesday he had surgery. When they biopsied the mass and his lymph nodes it came back large and small cell lymphoma. I debated for a couple of weeks on whether or not to do chemo on Sylvester but in the end realized that if I didn't try it, I would never know how he would respond to it. So, we started chemo 2 weeks after his surgery. He went in weekly for the first 7 weeks and achieved remission after week 5. He was diagnosed in August 2010 and the oncologist at the time gave him only 3-4 months to live even with chemo. But here we are, 9 months later and he is showing no signs of stopping. He continues to gain weight and has almost no side effects to the chemo. There is one drug that he gets (Vincristine) that makes him not want to eat for a couple of days but we manage through that with anti-nausea meds. When I saw the oncologist the last time I reminded her that it has been 9 months since diagnosis and she said in 3 more months we can reduce the frequency of his treatments. This is all very good news for my baby boy who is only 7 years old.
Update: On June 10, 2011, Sylvester lost his battle with lymphoma. He lived 10 months post-diagnosis and was a happy kitty that entire time. He was very ill the last 2 weeks of his life so in the early morning hours of Friday, June 10, 2011, I made the decison to put him to sleep. I don't regret for one minute my decision to do chemo on him. I felt like those 10 months, I was given an opportunity to love on him and prepare myself to say goodbye.
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Sylvester
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