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Today was Fredo’s oncology consult… man, what a sad place. There were some healthy cats in a little glass room playing around, that helped. But the animals waiting just seemed to be sick, and I overheard some other conversations between the vet and the owner of an animal that didn’t have a good prognosis. I feel so bad for them. I only hope that we have a better outcome with our kiddo.
The doctor (who I really liked) discussed his cancer a little bit, saying that he had the sarcomas in the beginning and the last biopsy showed carcinoma, so she wasn’t sure if maybe the first biopsy was inconclusive, etc. She predicted there was cancer in the sweat glands which isn’t very common and some vets think isn’t very aggressive (but she disagrees). There were a lot of words being thrown at me.. lol. I kept up the best I could. At first, when I got there, I swear the vet tech thought I was nuts for bringing him in without knowing that cancer had spread or even still existed in his body… I’m like, whatever lady, I came on the referral from my vet. I am no cancer expert. LUCKILY the actual oncologist was like, oh yeah this makes sense, we do it all the time, better safe than sorry.
So, she gave us two options. One was IV treatment, six rounds, alternating between two drugs. One is carboplatin and I cannot remember the other for the life of me (a Google search suggests paclitaxel?? that sounds right. Although now I just read Erica/Jill’s site and she had Doxorubicin which might also be right–HAHA)… the other was a medication (Palladia) administered orally at home, every other day for six months. Now, we didn’t have the best luck with Fredo and oral medications.. we just did the best we could with the liquid meds after his surgery. He does like the Onsior (I always say Onfior in person and then feel like an idiot) pills but I feel like we won’t be that lucky for six months. So, I opted to go for the IV treatment.
She said there would be six rounds at about $400 each (full disclosure for any future inquiring minds who may need a ballpark amount!), but I’ll get the exact estimate later. Becaaaause.. she asked me if I was ready to start today, or if I needed to chat about it at home, but we’ve already generally discussed that we’re going to do this, so I just made the call to get him started. Car rides with Fredo are NOT A FUN TIME. So, one less visit is a-okay with me. He’s there now, and I sadly had to leave him again at the vet for them to poke and prod him. Man I feel guilty. I know that long-term, he will not hold a grudge against me. I mean, if we can spring back from them taking his LEG OFF then I think we’ll spring back from this. But in that moment, it is very sad.
In the future, these visits will be 2-4 hours, as they evaluate blood work each time to monitor his white blood cell count. She said typically these visits will be every three weeks, unless his count is low. Today, since they don’t need to monitor the effects of medication on his body yet, he’ll be there for about an hour and then I can go get him.
We got a Care Credit card to help us with these expenses. If anyone is coming up against some surprise expenses, as we did, I recommend this! There is typically a no-interest period which we are taking advantage of.
I sure hope that this is the last big step for our little guy. Every time it gets harder to load him up into his carrier and take him. I attached some pictures. He is in the front seat, which I’m sure some people may disagree with, but in my head, it makes him less stressed if he can see me LOL. Probably not true.
Probably more updates later…
You disappoint me, lady. LOL
No fun for either of us.
Doctor’s car? Haha maybe
