:-(

About a week before I started working at Veremedy my dad noticed a lump on Tabby's back (Tabby is one of our 3 cats). When I went to visit my parents I checked out the lump - it was hard and immobile, and about the size of a grape. I didn't think it was very good so after I had been back at Veremedy for a couple days I brought her in to be looked at. One of the vets examined her and another performed a fine needle aspirate (a procedure where a needle on a syringe is pushed into the mass and the syringe plunger is drawn back to pull cells into the syringe - the cells are then sprayed onto slides, stained, and examined under a microscope). When the vet later examined the slides she saw various normal cells but also some fibrocytes which would point to fibrosarcoma. Because of these and the location (on the spine a few inches back from the shoulder blades) the two vets who had looked at Tabby feared it might be a vaccine-related fibrosarcoma, and they recommended that I bring her back the next week for surgery to have a piece removed and sent out for biopsy. I brought her in for surgery on Tuesday, October 2nd and the sample was sent out to a diagnostic lab. I got the results back yesterday and they weren't good.. Tabby has a grade II fibrosarcoma of the aggressive recurrent type (in other words, cancer). The lab recommended we take her to an oncologist for consultation. My parents have already decided that they want to do the aggressive surgery needed to remove the tumor even though it will likely cost more than $1,200. So, my mom is going to get an appointment with an oncologist for Tabby as soon as she can and then we will see what happens. We will do our best to make sure that Tabby's "golden years" are happy, comfortable ones.