Quick Kitty update
April 13th, 2023 at 06:01 pmMy Buffy was diagnosed with lymphoma on March 9th. She started chemotherapy on March 17th. She had her fourth treatment this past Tuesday. According to the vet, it is typically the fourth treatment that puts them into remission.
We will see if she is in remission on April 25th and determine how to proceed based on that morning's ultrasound results. Either the chemotherapy will continue for another 3 months, but at increasingly spaced intervals, or the vet will determine that she is not responding and we decide how to keep her comfortable for the longest possible period (which would only be another 1-2 months at most).
The third chemo dose was particularly hard on her, but I learned some tricks after that--like making sure I have an anti-nausea drug and an appetite stimulant on hand, requesting subcutaneous fluids to be administered at home to make sure she is hydrated, adding Prednisolone and Denamarin (which contains milk thistle and helps the liver clear toxins). She will have that same drug on the 25th if we decide to proceed, but hopefully it will be managed better, plus I will know what to expect.
And if the results are not what I hope, I am steeling myself to not keep her around too long, just as long as her life seems to have quality most of the time. I've learned that one day of not eating might be followed by a good eating day, so I won't pull the trigger too early, either.
Photo from a couple of years ago: