Razzle Dazzle the newbie

What a whirlwind two days!

I’m not even sure if I’ve entirely processed what’s about to happen. Yesterday my 4-year-old cat I’ve had since she was 8 weeks old was diagnosed with (probably) a soft-tissue sarcoma, and they told me I would have to remove the leg ASAP. So today, Raz and I drove all day and are getting ready to rest for the surgery tomorrow. AH!

Raz is a beautiful blue-gray shorthair, 4 years old (her birthday was a week ago!). She has an adopted brother cat, Kho, who is a month younger than her, also a blue-gray shorthair. We live in the Boston area with three roommates who are wonderful aunts and uncle to the kitties. Everything was going well with them; they love each other, but like sibling they have their moments. We had a routine.

It started mid-March. My roommates and I noticed that Raz wasn’t really acting her normal self. She was hiding more, being less social, more irritable with  We chalked it up to neurotic behavior, joked about needing a cat counselor. I feel AWFUL about that now, knowing what’s been going on with her.

We notice a slight limp on March 22, so I called the vet and made an appointment for the next day at a sister-location. She had gone from being 12.5lb in November at our checkup to 10! They did bloodwork, x-rays, and they couldn’t figure out what was going on. So we walked away with a bill, antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory. I went to our normal vet a few days later, got a better x-ray, and still no answers. We went to a vet hospital a few days after that, and Raz saw three specialists who STILL couldn’t figure out what was going on with my cat! The limp was getting more pronounced, and she wasn’t getting any better.  So the doctor ordered two weeks of strict bed rest, more antibiotics, probiotics, and gabbapentin.

Boy, this is getting long…

Fast forward two weeks to this past weekend…Raz had lost a lot of muscle tone in her bad leg, but there was a more pronounced lump forming on her hip. So I spent a lot of time in quiet tears fearing the worst. Yesterday we had our check-up. The new special doctor said she believes it to be a soft-tissue sarcoma, and that the leg needs to go. Then she told me the cost. $1200 for the CT scan and 4000 for the surgery. So, of course, I started crying again because on my teacher salary there’s no way I could ever afford that!

With the final tendrils of hope, I got home with Raz, and started googling. Within g just a couple minutes I found this place in Maryland, Spay Now, and they do amputations for $355! Plus a biopsy for an additional cost. I called them right away, and they had an appointment for Wednesday—tomorrow. Hence the 9 hours on the road today.

I’m so sorry this is dragging on…it’s nice to have a place that I can just let it all out, and I am so grateful for this site!!!

While we were on the road, I decided to to try and do what I should have done last night: x-rays. Yesterday was so chaotic that I didn’t take my own vet up on their offer to do xrays last night. But I worried that if the cancer had gotten to her lungs, and amputation would be an unnecessary pain for her. So we stop at Tri-county Vet in the middle of nowhere, and the wonderful people there said she looked clear!

So fingers crossed that tomorrow they can amputate the leg and get all the necessary margins to eliminate any fear of remaining cancer.

Thank you for listening to me ramble! I am so appreciative of this community, and I look forward to reading other stories and connecting with other Tripawds and digging into the resources on this site! 

Cassie McDonald

Raz (Scheherazade), soon-to-be tripawd

Kho (Khovanschina), annoying brother