Wednesday, 5/12/04
Hello friends,
My cat, Samba, has feline lymphoma, and I was referred to this group
via a friend from the Yahoo feline lymphoma support group. I have
been desperately searching for a specific case online with no luck.
I am searching for another case where a cat with feline lymphoma
became septic during chemotherapy. To be more specific, I am
searching for a cat who survived the sepsis and then resumed
chemotherapy. I want to know what happened when the cat resumed the
chemo. Did they become septic again? Were there any other life
threatening complications? My cat Samba is just recovering from a
horrible septic episode, and our vet wants us to decide whether or not
to try to continue his chemotherapy. Samba is a 4 year old NM DSH,
who we adopted as a neighborhood stray at about 1 year old, after
finding out he had FeLV. He has been in good health for three years,
until his diagnosis of stage IV multicentric lymphoma on January 26 of
this year.
The cancer is lymphoblastic (fast growing), is in his spleen and lymph
nodes, and was diagnosed at the local referral hospital. After
diagnosis we started taking Samba to see the closest oncologist, 2
hours away, at a university teaching hospital, for weekly
chemotherapy. They put him on the weekly COPA chemotherapy protocol.
In March, before his week #4 first Doxy treatment, Samba's neutrophil
count had dropped below the 2,500 minimum to 2,100. The Doxy was
given anyway, as the oncologist thought he might naturally run low,
seeing as his count did not bounce back up within the usual time
frame. Since then, Samba's neutrophil count has never been back up to
the 2,500 benchmark, but he has continued to receive weekly chemo, as
the oncologist still thinks he just runs a low neutrophil count. This
continued until April 7, when he became horribly septic, and was
hospitalized in ICU, with a guarded chance for
survival. Things looked really bad.
Thankfully, Samba managed to recover from the sepsis, and is presently
doing great. His ultrasound one week ago showed him to still be in
remission. The oncologist wants us to make a decision, and quickly,
about whether or not to resume chemo. I asked if she has ever had
another feline lymphoma patient who got sepsis during chemo, as I
wanted to know if they resumed treatment and if so, WHAT happened.
Our oncologist has been at this university teaching hospital for many
years, but has never had another lymphoma cat become septic. Thus, I
have no example to help me make a decision for Samba, and I feel
horribly ill-prepared to do so. I have been unable to get much
guidance out of our oncologist on this matter. She basically gave me
the "it's up to you " speech. I think she's worried I would blame her
if things went terribly wrong (again).
This led me to an in-depth internet search for a case similar to
Samba's, that I could gain some insight from. Of the only two other
cases of chemo induced sepsis I have found, one cat died and the other
survived, but did not continue chemotherapy. Therefore, I have not
been able to find a case where chemo was resumed. Has anyone reading
this ever had and/or treated a cat with feline lymphoma who became
septic during chemotherapy? If so, and if they resumed treatment, can
you tell me what happened?
We would do anything to help give Samba more quality time, but I would
never forgive myself if we resumed treatment and it sent him right
back into another painful septic crisis, which I fear he would not
survive.
Before the sepsis crisis he was happy and feeling good most of the
time. Running around the house and causing trouble like usual.
Obviously, every cat is different, and Samba's FeLV is a significantly
contributing factor, but I would surely like to learn from the
experiences of other lymphoma kitties, if possible, rather than
blindly experimenting with our own poor cat.
Please, if you've experienced this, share your story with me... With
thousands of members, someone else must surely have been through this
before... Any insight or previous experience you are willing to share
is deeply appreciated.
Thank you for listening to our long saga, and thanks in advance for
your input.
~ Stacy
