My Sweet Friends!

Here's what I got in the mail last week from my fellow Nestie (End-of-Summer Nestie Swap!), Marci, all the way from Colorado! I've been so blessed to form friendships with an amazing group of women. :)


Benny really loved the white chocolate!

Benny: Biopsy Results

The vet called yesterday afternoon. It was a blur, which is why I hate discussing important things over the phone. It always takes a while to process the info and I've already hung up by the time the real questions start to form.

Basically, she said the growth was a "skin cancer with low grade malignancy" and that the amount of skin they excised is "likely curative". She said Benny may develop more growths since he's white. She didn't sound too concerned and didn't offer any other next steps.

Benny has another appointment this Thursday (his 5th visit in 6 weeks) to have his sutures removed (he's got a bald patch on his neck with an incision about 1" long). I'm developing a list of questions for her:
- Can she tell if the cancer has spread to other parts of his body besides just the skin?
- Is there anything we can do to prevent the spread?
- Are there any signs to watch out for?
- Should we try to keep them out of the sun (they're indoors, but they love to sit on the window sill)?
- Would tinted windows help? We thought about tinting our windows when we bought our townhouse 2 years ago, but never did it due to cost and being lazy. :P We were quoted $870 to do a tint/security film for all of our windows 2 years ago. This may be the prime time to do it.

Anyway, just thought I'd give an update to all who may be wondering. It's definitely not the news I wanted to hear (i.e. "cancer" and "malignant"), but it could have been a lot worse. Benny and I thank you all for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Benny: Surgery Round 2

Benny ended up back in surgery today. :( Here's what happened....

1-1/2 weeks ago, Benny went back to the vet for his declaw surgery follow-up visit. He was finally given the all clear and rejoined society on April 25th. He was so happy to be out of our bedroom. He was getting cabin fever and confining a cat in our tiny bedroom was beginning to take its toll on us, as well.

During his follow-up, I asked the vet to take a look at a tiny growth I noticed on his neck. She said it didn't look like anything to be concerned about, but to bring him back if it got bigger. Okay, so I should also mention that she poked it with a small needle while we were there, thinking it may have been a whitehead that she could take care of it on the spot. Well, after she poked it, nothing came out. She put some antibiotic ointment on it and we were on our merry way. I'm now wondering if we'd be here today if she had just left it alone....

Well, over the course of 1-1/2 weeks, I would say it doubled in size and this past Friday, I noticed it was purple and crusty. The vet couldn't see Benny again until today. Brian took Benny in this morning and the vet decided to keep Benny for the day and perform surgery to remove the growth. Poor Benny had to undergo anesthesia for the 2nd time in just over 2 weeks!

I feel terrible because Benny doesn't have a clue what's going on or why he keeps having to go under the knife. :( He also has a couple of toes that are still trying to heal. The vet thinks he's over-grooming them and not allowing them to fully heal. Luckily, she sent him home with antibiotics, which should help the rest of his toes and his latest incision heal.

Benny is back home now, but I'm nervously awaiting the biopsy results. In 72 hours, we should know whether the growth is benign or the "other" kind...I can't bring myself to even mention that "other" kind. :( The vet said she wouldn't normally be too concerned, but because Benny is an older cat (8 years old) and because he's white (to quote Super Knottie & veterinarian mrspresley, "white cats have a higher incidence of squamous cell carcinomas...") she really wants to be sure everything is normal.

Lol, you should have seen my reaction when I was told how much today's surgery cost. To sum it up, we've spent about $850 on Benny's surgeries in the past 2 weeks. Thank God for the economic stimulus act and for our tax refunds this year!

I'll keep you all posted on the biopsy results. It's gonna be a long 3 days....

UPDATE: Benny

The vet contacted me today to schedule Benny's surgery for next Wednesday, April 16th. Thankfully, the antibiotics seem to be working. I took a look at his toe today and, although it still looks a little red, it looks like it's drying out and beginning to heal.

The estimated charges total $351.37! It includes the surgery, anesthesia, cardiac monitor, radiograph, pain meds, and overnight stay. Man, when it rains, it pours! We need to pay off our Ihilani weekend and our car insurance premiums are also due early next month! Sheesh! I wish we had pet health insurance or something. :P

Here's the "schedule":
- Tuesday, April 15th: No food after 6PM, no water after Midnight. Cats sometimes get sick if they don't have an empty stomach while under anesthesia. Since we can't really separate Benny and Chester, looks like Chester will be fasting, too. He is not going to be happy. :P

- Wednesday, April 16th: Drop Benny off at the vet at 7AM. Since Brian will be sleeping by then, I'll take Benny and go in to work a couple hours late. I wonder if "Care of a furbaby" (versus "Care of a Family Member") qualifies as sick leave? Benny will stay overnight so he can get some much-needed post-surgery rest without Chester terrorizing him. :P
(Dr. Furutani is so cool. She said they normally send declaw patients home the day of surgery, but she's going to let him stay overnight. According to our estimate, she's only charging us for "Cage Occupancy". Cage Occupancy is what they charge for the cage they keep the animals in, post-surgery, until their owners pick them up on the same day. When my dad had his stroke in 2006, it happened to coincide with the very same day we had to pick Chester up from the vet after having some procedures done for his urinary tract problems. When she called to let us know that Chester was ready to be picked up, I told her about my dad and she said not to worry about Chester and that they would keep him overnight. She didn't charge us for the stay.)

- Thursday, April 17th: Pick Benny up after 1PM.

In preparation for Benny's post-surgery recovery, we need to make some changes to their litter box situation. Benny can't use clay litter until his incisions heal. So, I need to find some Yesterday's News cat litter and replace their old litter with it. I'm going to hit up K-mart and Pet's Discount tomorrow after work. I'm not sure how they'll adjust to the new litter.

I'm wondering if we may need to lock Benny in our bedroom. The last time he had this surgery, the vet recommended he be confined so Chester doesn't bother him and also wanted to limit his physical activity, such as running and leaping, so that the incisions could heal. He was miserable being locked up in our room. :(

Benny needs surgery :(

I'm so sad. Benny will need to have surgery to fix the front paw declawing he had 8 years ago.

4 years ago, he had to have surgery on a few of his toes on both front paws. Apparently, when the vet declawed him 8 years ago, she used the Resco Clipper Declaw Method. This entails using a guillotine-type nail trimmer to cut through the bone of the 3rd digit of the toe, from which the claw grows. Since the part of the bone from which the claw grows is removed, the idea is that the cat's claws no longer grow back (in most cases).

However, complications can arise from this method. In Benny's case, he had bone spurs in his toes as a result of the amputation of his 3rd digits. The bone spurs can cause quite a bit of discomfort and we later learned that Benny was licking, biting, and chewing at the affected toes in an effort to find relief. At the time, the solution was surgery on the infected toes to remove any bone spurs or debris. The vet didn't mention just performing a Disarticulation of all of his toes to completely remove the 3rd digit so there would be no recurrence of the bone spur problem. Had I known this was an option at the time, we would have done this.

Fast forward 4 years to today, Benny is having this problem again! On Sunday night, I noticed Benny was limping a little and would sit with his right paw in the air. I thought he was trying to be cute, but I noticed his paw looked funny. Brian grabbed him and I got a closer look. One of his toes was red, swollen and kind of purple and bruised looking. I knew exactly what was going on and called our new vet--not the same one from 4 years ago--first thing yesterday morning. Unfortunately, she was booked and couldn't see Benny until this afternoon.

We took Benny in and Dr. Furutani confirmed my suspicions. She got a close look at his toe and said it was infected and abscessed. She prescribed Benny some antibiotics to clear up the infection. She said we could either let it go and hope for the best once the infection cleared up, or go ahead and do the disarticulation on all of his toes to avoid another recurrence in the future. Benny is 8 years old now and I fear that if this problem comes up again in another 4 years, he'll just be too old and not recover as well from surgery. I really wish we had been presented with this option 4 years ago. We could have been done with all of this and Benny wouldn't have to suffer.

So, the plan is to wait until Benny's infection clears up and then go ahead with the disarticulation surgery for the rest of his toes.

I really feel terrible. Due to circumstances, I really had no control over the decision to declaw Benny and Chester 8 years ago. (BTW, Chester has never had problems with his toes...knock on wood. He was "blessed" with other problems--deafness and chronic urinary tract problems. I pray that Chester doesn't end up with this problem down the line. *sigh*) If we ever have another cat in the future, I REFUSE to declaw. We will find alternative ways to control unwanted scratching.

*** stepping down from my soap box ***