:'(

[paraka]

I took my cat Tigger to the vet today, since she's been having a problem with her jaw since September. Turns out she has a tumour. We think, I haven't gotten a biopsy done to know for sure because it's $800 and if it is a tumour the only possible thing we could do is remove her jaw and I won't do that to her. She still seems happy if a bit disconcerted since her mouth feels weird, she's not really in pain, so we're just going to keep an eye on her and hold on for as long as she comfortably can.

Comments

[paraka]

Thanks, I may very well take you up on your offer of advise depending on how things go. We currently have her on two different antibiotics on the slight chance that it's an infection instead of a tumour (I didn't actually get the biopsy, and was sure for a while that it was just an infections) and we figured it won't do her any harm since the placement of the tumour can make it easier to get infected.

Luckily she still has her apatite and in fact has been eating more lately. Although she's lot a kilogram since the spring, but she was having digestive problems them, so we attributed the weight loss to that. We switched her over to wet food back then, and have recently found a new flavour that she really loves, she just gets pissed off when we try and put medicine in it (one of the antibiotics she's taking right now is banana flavoured :S) so we've been trying to give her her medicine separately. She wised up to the pills and now fights us when we try and give her anything but at least that way we know she's taking it.
As for pain meds, they did give her one a while back, but it was really strong, also they were in capsules so it was super hard to get her to take them. We'd give them to her though, and about 20 minutes she'd lie down in my room with her pupils dilated as far as they can go. I'd look at her and think that she must be seeing pink elephants dancing across the room or something, because she was totally high. And not actually in that much pain to begin with, so we stopped giving it to her.

Thanks so much for the hugs and offer of help. :)

[lemonpiefirefly.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know how available it is in Canada, but there is a non-drowsy NSAID (aspirin-type medicine) called metacam (meloxicam) that is in a liquid that I will use in cats sometimes, and also tramadol can be used in cats and is pretty non-drowsy but would likely need to be mixed specially by a compounding pharmacy to get flavored or in liquid and to dose more precisely. NSAIDS in cats can get touchy, especially if they have any history of liver or kidney trouble, but it can be done with judicious dosing. Tramadol's a bit easier on the system in general, it's just not an anti-inflammatory though, just pain med. Some products etc may not be as widely available there but I would bet those 2 are. Also, if you have a compounding pharmacy your vet can work with (depending on the laws there) they can flavor stuff ("cat flavors" like tuna, chicken, etc), make liquids, and in some cases even do gels that absorb through the skin called transdermals or PLOs.

Hopefully you won't need to worry about pain meds, but if you do, there may be some non-wonkifying and possible easier-to-dose forms of meds available to you....

Much luck, and msg me anytime.