Sorry to hear about that. We may have had cats wth the same problem.
We just lost Magnus, our Norwegian Forest Cat, to lymphoma last week. ( That is why there was room for the aforepictured kittens ). A year before he was diagnosed with lymphoma, he started having diarrhea and poor appetite. He went from 12 pounds to 10 over nine months.
Sorry to hear about thisā¦ 
Did you ever try Chemo on him? From what my vet told me (sheās a relative of ours), and other research Iāve done, it works 95% of the time, sometimes forever. We couldnāt get our hands on it, even with our connections in time.
Charlie was the best and sweetest but he wanted NOTHING to do with going out of the house. We had to basically wait until he was so sick that he couldnāt fight being put in a carrier.
Him and his sister would run when the door opened. We could prop our doors open for a week and they wouldnāt leave the house. Not sure what they went through outside before we rescued them but obviously it wasnāt good.
Ollie wants out so we are going to have to chip him when heās fixed.
This may help someone. New studies show that male cats should not be fixed until they are at least 6 months old to allow their urethras to fully develop which prevents the crystal clogging that can happen later in life.
I donāt want to wait that long but I guess we will. If he starts spraying, that could be a problem for his little nuts sooner than 6 months. LOL
The vet said that we could, but that it would probably change the forecast from weeks to months. She judged that he was terminal.
I hear that chemo is horribly unpleasant, but at least humans can understand why it is needed, and can choose to do it or not. We decided not to do it to a cat who probably would not have survived anyway - and who definitely would not have understood.
That is the age that we are aiming for.
Too many do not understand or accept that part.
Iām so sorry. I have experienced it twice in pups.
Actually, itās commonly known that most cats tolerate Chemo exceptionally well compared to humans. Itās a super-low dose used in cats (even by weight comparison standards). It just works well almost all the time.
My sister in lawās sister is our vet and graduated from Cornell University with cancer as one of her focuses. That and surgery. She has her own fur babies and wouldnāt hesitate to do what we had planned on. I knew it wasnāt because of the money that she urged us to go that route.
I felt the exact same way as @rms did until I learned the facts and talked to my vet. Iām just sorry that we didnāt get this diagnosed just a week or 2 earlier. If we had, thereās a 95% chance that Charlie would be purring on my lap right now as I write this. He was young too, just barely 10 which was also in his favor.
This is Pah-Su (Lakotah for āNoseyā). He was the best of dogs. He was at heel or snoozing with his muzzle near my feet from 3 months until his passing at 17. He was a Corgi-Jack Russell cross, so much longer legs. An āOff-Road Corgiā. Corgis are herding dogs, and we would go to the sheep dog trials every fall, and Pah-Su would bring home at least a ribbon every year, often a trophy, beating out all the neurotic border collies. He ran like a brown streak, and he loved the game. He never had to work sheep in actual shepherding, so the game was all he knew, with its small number of sheep, and highly stylized tasks, most often, all in the same order.
Heād often look up at me when we were on the south side of my farm, where one could see the adjacent farm where dairy cows were grazed. āCome on, let me do my thing!ā his eyes would plead. āJust LOOK at that disorganized mess over there - just random scattering of cows, no order at all! And milking time is approaching, it will take them FOREVER to wander up to the milking barn on their own, I can have them up there in 30 seconds flat, the whole herdā¦ come on, put me in, Coachā¦ā
So, I actually bought some sheep as āpetsā for Pah-Su, just to give him some practice, and to stop him from trying to herd my collection of aging horses that people gave to me when they realized that they could not really afford a horse after all, or divorced, or whatever (We had 17. Only 2 could be ridden.)
The ears were a big bonus - if he laid down facing southeast, we could get free HBO off the satellite.
Its been years, but I still will occasionally startle - āwhere has the dog gone?ā asks my brain. I had a dog at my side since I could barely walk, and some things are ingrained too deeply. But I live in the City now, and a dog would have no fun with no yard except the park, and so much traffic and noise and untrained dogs pulling owners on leashes. (āA LEASH???ā Pah Su would think. āWhat did I do to deserve THIS UTTER CRAP? I know how to HEEL and I am never anywhere but at YOUR SIDE!ā)
Good dog!
I guess we donāt have an emoji for smiling with misty eyes.
Nice post. Thank you.
ps: love that phrase āOff-Road Corgiā
We had a Corgi once, wandered in one day and stayed for the rest of her days. Her play passion was tug of war.
@packetfire Beautifully written piece. Dogs are devoted companions. 
Even though they have been gone for years, I still think about my dear departed doggies almost every day. I miss walking them and chatting with neighbors and strangers along our routes. I met neighbors that I normally would not have because of our walks. It often made a bad day better.
Do you know of a name for this IBS type condition?
This is interesting to me because, you probably recall, I lost a 6 year old to lymphoma, and like your situation, she did not last long enough to start chemo. And I still have the ginger male who was madly in love with her, so I hope heās not at higher risk and I want to know everything I should watch for in him.
I also paid a hefty testing and treatment bill covering the 2 weeks before she passed.
Too many pets getting lymphoma. Is it the food? Environment? I hope a cause/causes can be discovered soon for prevention.
Here are my babies. Only a true dog lover would take their pets to see Santa.
From what I remember, itās just plain old IBD but I will ask my vet next time we are there if itās more specific than that.
From what we were told, that persistent irritation in the GI tract just leads to Lymphoma eventually in some.
Thank you. Can you also ask if thereās a recommended diet to avoid IBD?
My Dewey wonāt be seeing a vet anytime soon and his former vet moved on. We still have to withhold food and use a live trap to transport him. Heās so stubborn that it takes 3 days before he gives in to enter the trap for the food. Then the vet has to anesthetize him in order to check him over. Itās an ordeal.
Heās all teeth and claws if we try to put him in anything else.
Heās a real lover at home, we just canāt take him anywhere. He was feral for about 3 years before he chose our home. Heās now indoor only.
Oh myā¦ Thatās the name of my Vetās cat that just passed from old age.
Quite a coincidence.
I will see what I can find out for you. Keep in mind, I wonāt be seeing her for 4 weeks.
4 weeks is not a problem.
The bookstore cat that we lost six months ago was a ginger, excellent for the store. For a while we had two from the same litter, lost the sister to cancer years ago, this one just got old and faded away at almost 20 years. He was in the store for 13 of those. He got kind of famous in our fairly small city. Now that summer is here, the annual visitors are coming in to see him, so we are still breaking the news to people.
Pippin the newbie has come out several times today to get pets! Even when it was three ladies at once. I think she prefers female energy to male, which is not good as the owner is a big guy and I only work once in a while. But I think she will be fine in a few more weeks. She is very sweet. Low energy, as the owner here purposely found an older cat.
So sad to hear about so much illness in cats. I have always been incredibly lucky in my feline companions.
Oh, how our well-missed friend @Hollywood_O - a long-time forum vet, & author/OP of what I think more than a few might agree was the best of the āWho Doesnāt Love Puddy-tats?ā threads on the OSFE - would like that entertaining image.
