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UPDATE about my cat's situation + SCHEDULED STREAM
9 years ago
General
Wanna support my silly stickers and other dumb doodles?
Buy me a Coffee! 
**First of all I would like to announce that I will be doing a pwyw stream this coming Saturday around 7pm EST with 
with proceeds going towards my cat's vet bills! I will be offering little derpy doodles starting at $5 and I think they will be offering sketches! (which, if you haven't seen their sketches already, go check them out, they're amazing! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22310415/) ***
If you're unsure what this is about or want more details into context you can read everything in the previous journal here > http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8112044/
but the TL;DR version is that we found a mass on my cat's foot earlier this month which turned out to unfortunately be a malignant tumor. We have since been attempting to raise money in order to cover medical expenses as her vet bills have already passed 1k and are still growing.
the tumor is at current, a low grade sarcoma and the location of it /should/ make the growth of it very slow. However cancer is still cancer and it still needs to be taken care of before it becomes somethng very hard to deal with
[/b]
Over the course of the past week or two, both alfafilly and myself have been researching the various treatment options available and attempting to narrow down what we could and could not do keeping in mind both price and also the well being of Marly (my cat)
We ended up narrowing it down to either amputation of the leg or radiation treatment plus a "debulking" surgery that was recommended alongside said radiation in order to give it a better success rate. We were leaning towards radiation at first since the initial shock of amputating a leg was a very tough pill to swallow, but eventually after more consideration it began to look like the lesser of two evils.
If we were to go down the radiation path, I would have to ship marly off to an out of state facility where she would have to be anesthetized 5 days out of the week in order to treat her tumor. Given her temperment and personality, I worry this would be very traumatic for her mentally and emotionally, plus, although very small, the chance of radiation side effects such as nerve damage and bone cancer are still a possibility. On top of all that, this treatment is astronomically out of our price range. The debulking surgery itself is 3.5-4k alone and the radiation is about 7-9k. That's more than tuition for a semester of college and just not something I can do.
A cheaper radiation option was proposed but we decided against it as it would be topical radiation meaning the deeper the tumor cells the less effectiveness it'd have. it would be significantly cheaper, around 450 per session for 2 sessions, however we would still have to get the debulking surgery for it to even work at all, and since there are virtually no studies on the effectiveness relevant to our situation, I really don't think it's a gamble worth taking.
That leaves amputation which still sucks tremendously but has the highest success rate of clearing out the cancer. It's our cheapest option, (albiet still very pricy > http://sta.sh/0qomh45rdq6 ) and although I still have a hard time accepting it, I'd rather have a happy little tripod cat rather than a sick, unhappy cat later down the road.
I've talked to both her vets about this decision and they both approve it being the right thing to do in our situation, however the specialist says he would like to hold off on doing the procedure just yet as he has trouble ethically removing a leg that, at current shows no signs of owtward pain or discomfort to the cat. He proposed waiting until the end of the month (or sooner if the mass grows noticably) to observe the growth rate and go from there. I don't know how comfortable I am with this, but I'm at least willing to comply this time around and talk more in depth with him during the next visit.
The silver lining in all of this is that it gives me a bit more time to recover financially from the situation and begin saving up a bit more money for the big procedure down the road. It also gives marly a bit of time to recoup from the stress of having been biopsy'd, poked,prodded and x rayed multiple times in a few short weeks.
The bad news is that I am constantly paranoid that this thing /will/ get bigger or spread internally. I understand the vet's logic but i don't fully agree with it I suppose. It also means more vet bills since as long as this stupid thing is on her body, assuming we don't do the surgery soon, she'll need to get checked out every month or so which adds up quickly, especially when seeing a specialist
We still plan on doing a gofundme sometime but want to wait until surgery is a definite probability as it only seems fair. Prints and comics are still being offered in the mean time though to help support Marm and to help relieve some of the burden of her vet bills. IF you are interested in snagging one, check here! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22800466/
Aside from that though, all I can really do is continue my commission work as scheduled. I'd love to do more but taking on anything else at the moment is not much of a possiblity. I may try to make some adopts if I have additional spare time, but can't really promise anything past that atm.
with proceeds going towards my cat's vet bills! I will be offering little derpy doodles starting at $5 and I think they will be offering sketches! (which, if you haven't seen their sketches already, go check them out, they're amazing! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22310415/) ***If you're unsure what this is about or want more details into context you can read everything in the previous journal here > http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8112044/
but the TL;DR version is that we found a mass on my cat's foot earlier this month which turned out to unfortunately be a malignant tumor. We have since been attempting to raise money in order to cover medical expenses as her vet bills have already passed 1k and are still growing.
the tumor is at current, a low grade sarcoma and the location of it /should/ make the growth of it very slow. However cancer is still cancer and it still needs to be taken care of before it becomes somethng very hard to deal with
[/b]
Over the course of the past week or two, both alfafilly and myself have been researching the various treatment options available and attempting to narrow down what we could and could not do keeping in mind both price and also the well being of Marly (my cat)
We ended up narrowing it down to either amputation of the leg or radiation treatment plus a "debulking" surgery that was recommended alongside said radiation in order to give it a better success rate. We were leaning towards radiation at first since the initial shock of amputating a leg was a very tough pill to swallow, but eventually after more consideration it began to look like the lesser of two evils.
If we were to go down the radiation path, I would have to ship marly off to an out of state facility where she would have to be anesthetized 5 days out of the week in order to treat her tumor. Given her temperment and personality, I worry this would be very traumatic for her mentally and emotionally, plus, although very small, the chance of radiation side effects such as nerve damage and bone cancer are still a possibility. On top of all that, this treatment is astronomically out of our price range. The debulking surgery itself is 3.5-4k alone and the radiation is about 7-9k. That's more than tuition for a semester of college and just not something I can do.
A cheaper radiation option was proposed but we decided against it as it would be topical radiation meaning the deeper the tumor cells the less effectiveness it'd have. it would be significantly cheaper, around 450 per session for 2 sessions, however we would still have to get the debulking surgery for it to even work at all, and since there are virtually no studies on the effectiveness relevant to our situation, I really don't think it's a gamble worth taking.
That leaves amputation which still sucks tremendously but has the highest success rate of clearing out the cancer. It's our cheapest option, (albiet still very pricy > http://sta.sh/0qomh45rdq6 ) and although I still have a hard time accepting it, I'd rather have a happy little tripod cat rather than a sick, unhappy cat later down the road.
I've talked to both her vets about this decision and they both approve it being the right thing to do in our situation, however the specialist says he would like to hold off on doing the procedure just yet as he has trouble ethically removing a leg that, at current shows no signs of owtward pain or discomfort to the cat. He proposed waiting until the end of the month (or sooner if the mass grows noticably) to observe the growth rate and go from there. I don't know how comfortable I am with this, but I'm at least willing to comply this time around and talk more in depth with him during the next visit.
The silver lining in all of this is that it gives me a bit more time to recover financially from the situation and begin saving up a bit more money for the big procedure down the road. It also gives marly a bit of time to recoup from the stress of having been biopsy'd, poked,prodded and x rayed multiple times in a few short weeks.
The bad news is that I am constantly paranoid that this thing /will/ get bigger or spread internally. I understand the vet's logic but i don't fully agree with it I suppose. It also means more vet bills since as long as this stupid thing is on her body, assuming we don't do the surgery soon, she'll need to get checked out every month or so which adds up quickly, especially when seeing a specialist
We still plan on doing a gofundme sometime but want to wait until surgery is a definite probability as it only seems fair. Prints and comics are still being offered in the mean time though to help support Marm and to help relieve some of the burden of her vet bills. IF you are interested in snagging one, check here! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/22800466/
Aside from that though, all I can really do is continue my commission work as scheduled. I'd love to do more but taking on anything else at the moment is not much of a possiblity. I may try to make some adopts if I have additional spare time, but can't really promise anything past that atm.
https://picarto.tv/Stupidshepherd