Update:

The good news: ct and bone scans totally clear. No spread, I guess that means.

The bad news: looks like my cat has breast cancer. the universe has a really irritating sense of humor.

Aw! My cat had a cancerous growth on his lip. It was an adenoma and they told me the grow slowly and often don't spread. So I'm hoping that'll be the case with him. They removed it but didn't take a big margin around it, because of it's location.

What's the prognosis for breast cancer in a cat?

Happy to hear things look good for your mom!

Hiya Nancy. The prognosis is probably not good for kitty--she's part siamese, they have a tendency towards mammary cancer, she's almost 9, which is about when they get it, and it's growing fast. It's also possibly also made some muscle tissue involvement. So surgery would likely involve the equivalent of a radical mastectomy and removing some muscle tissue, plus I think chemo? Which in addition to probably going way beyond anything we could afford, begins to sound a bit cruel to put an animal through, to me.

The husband is taking her to an animal oncologist today (it's only $120 so we figured we could at least get the full info) but we're both expecting the worst.

Needless to say, this is making for some complicated emotional issues. For example, usually I would go to Mom for comfort in this situation. I mean, she's my Mom. However, I don't want to upset her, especially with the weird coincidence. On the other hand, I am simply awful at disguising my emotions. The day we got the news her scans were all clear (awesome) was the day the vet said the cat definitely had cancer. So Mom gives me the good news, I then burst into tears (first of relief) and then blab about the cat because I suck at keeping things to myself.

Anyway--steeling myself for the worst on the cat, but Mom's prognosis is looking very hopeful. She started the chemo day before yesterday, and so far she's tolerating it better than we'd hoped. It's still early, and she says stuff does taste weird, but no nausea that is getting past all the nausea meds, no fatigue yet (beyond what she already had from stress).

We have still gotten some mixed signals on whether mastectomy will be necessary; she's also getting the targetted HER2 hormone therapy. I'm thinking it probably will be necessary.

She's taking the vitamin D but I think she kind of tossed any lowcarb thoughts out the window, especially when they warned her that stuff she eats now may be unappealing indefinitely thereafter. Unfortunately she is doing sugar (gatorade at least). I feel like I've given her all the info as bluntly as I can, and I guess I am not willing to take it the level of actual nagging--she has to decide for herself how she's going to approach this all.

Thanks as usual for listening.

Aw, I'm sorry about everything. My kitty is siamese too. He's 17 years old though! Definitely in slowly declining health but he couldn't be more lovable and cuddly.

Bleh. Will costs thousands and thousands to buy the cat a couple of years at best, nevermind putting her through surgeries and chemo, so...we're just going to spoil her for the time she's got left.

I made the mistake of googling this a bit, and since I'm now beating myself up about it I might as well post it and maybe help someone else: we could have SIGNIFICANTLY (90%+) reduced the cat's chance of mammary cancer if we hadn't put off getting her spayed for one stupid reason or another until she was older. Needs to be done as soon as possible, ideally 6 mos; after 2 years you lose most of the cancer risk reduction benefit. I didn't know; I know now. Sigh. I'm not going to tell the husband this because (due to my Mom's situation) he has volunteered to handle most of the cat situation, and I don't want to put any more guilt on him. So...posting it here.

Mom is tolerating the chemo well still; we're guardedly optimistic (we're at 4+ days out now and she went to the grocery store with me yesterday), but I guess the effects may (will?) increase with successive rounds.

Oh I am so glad she is doing so far well. Lets Pray she continues. I wanted to tell you Gatorade make PRO its in the same area where you by the bottles, it has no sugar. I worry with that sugar the tumor may soak it up and feed off it...

I know they love sugar. I had one, and I am a Diabetic and with that the tumor loved all the sugar, my livers glucose, and gosh what a monster......

Be careful to about who your Mom is around during this time, Chemo kills the immune system and sickness is not something she needs, or can tolorate.

Your poor kitty, My Moms doggie died last yr form cancer that spread all through her body. It was so hard for my Mom. When we were young our dog got Tumors on her tummy and later died form them spreading internally.

It is so ironic you Cat has this as your Mom does. What did you Mom say?

How long does you Mom have to do the Chemo for?
I hope the meds keep working...
I will keep her in My Prayers, I keep reading your post, sometime just to tired to write tho, but I am thinking of you and her...
Keep us updated, Debbie

Oh wow! I didn't even know spaying would lower the cancer risk. I suppose that makes sense, hormones wouldn't be operating for 2 years. Thanks for posting that, I had no idea.

I usually get male cats though. I have a notion in my head, dunno if it's true or not, that male cats have fewer emotional/behavioral issues than female kitties.

This past spring we lost our Siamese cat to cancer, she had been spayed at 6 months. We originally did two surgeries and removed her right front leg after being told that would "take care of it". When the lump came back we just spent the remaining time with her that we had. So don't feel guilty about the spaying, it can still happen. Prayers for you all.

Aw I feel so sad about these Siamese kitties. I had no idea that cancer was so prevalent. I'm just so lucky I've had my sweet boy for so many relatively trouble-free years.

Thank you all for reading & posting.

I had Mom check into her labs and as of 12/30 her OHD was 25, which on the test is listed as 'insufficiency'. I think that was before I had her start taking 10kIU a day. If that number doesn't increase, should we have her ask for a rx supplement? I think in one of the papers on VitD and cancer I read, they indicated this was something they could do.

Jen, I really do appreciating the thought, and I'm sorry about your kitty. But what kind of cancer was it? I think the neutering is specific to preventing mammary and other reproductive cancers. You mention the leg. (Sounds awful and I'm sorry.)

One positive thing, while we were digging into her labs: I've mentioned in the cholesterol forum, both she and I have the somewhat typical scary lowcarb numbers: very high total, pretty bad LDL, and rock bottom triglycerides. Her doctor had just about scared into lipitor just before the cancer thing happened. Because chemo is so hard on your heart, I guess they do extensive testing first and she was listed as 'no significant arteriosclerosis,' or words to that effect. So she feels better about not having started on the statin.

Oh, and hismouse, I don't mean to keep on not replying to your posts...just scattered.

Re: Mom and the cat...she knows there is something up but she doesn't ask and I am making a point of not telling her. She knows how much I love the cat (and I'm not sure I've been clear about that...I tend to be very guarded online), she was my first real pet as an adult that was only mine, if you see what I mean; but the cat also usually hides when people are here, so...morbid as it is, Mom wouldn't really notice if the cat wasn't around, so I'm keeping it from her as long as possible for her sake. (She loves animals, and she has a pack of woods cats she feeds and lets into the house sometimes...and she would worry about me.)

I believe Mom has 4 rounds of chemo at 3 week intervals on the big stuff, and once a week on the herceptin (which I guess isn't really 'chemo' in the nasty-side effect sense). That started Jan 6th. Hair isn't gone yet but I think it wont be long.

NO NO NO the rx form of Vitamin D is less good less safe, less reliable and less effective than the over the counter form. If you check the Great Vitamin D thread you'll find some posts of mine with a graph of the rate of turnover of Vitamin D2 (rx form) compared to D3 (otc) and you can see why I am so insistent that only D3 is ever used.

Thank you Hutchinson. I think I remember seeing something like that on the....vitamin D council website? She's taking cholecalciferol form now, I guess I am just concerned about her number being so low. For some history:

November 2008: She moved up here to NC after 20 years in Florida. I immediately had her start taking 5000IU a day because I was a recent vitamin D convert from these forums, and she was moving north in the middle of winter, etc. She took that consistently until...

End of November 2009: We find out about the cancer. I almost immediately have her move up to 7K per day.

Mid-December 2009: I've read more, I have her start taking 10k.

December 30, 2009: Her labs are drawn, she is 25ng/ml

I know it can take a while for the levels to rise, but given that she had already been on 5k IU for a year, does 10k/day seem appropriate now? I also get concerned about the quality of supplements, I am using the little round gel ball type pills from netrition.

If I had cancer I would want to be around 75~90ng/ml.
If you look at the graph here

You will see that a level of 25ng after taking 10,000iu for a while is worrying as it indicates an absorption problem or her body is using it up very quickly.
If these are what you are using they are probably OK
NOW Vitamin D-3, 5000 IU Vitamin D is fairly robust, it can stand heat and cold but not light.

However as we know people eating a higher carbohydrate intake may be storing fat rather than burning it, you MAY (this is just a guess) do better with a form that is dissolved in MCT as we know MCT is more easily metabolized and less likely to be sent to store (taking the D3 out of circulation).
Apart from that the use of UVB may circumvent any malabsorption problem.
It's also possible that snipping the end off an oil based get cap and massaging the oil into the skin would achieve the same result. Again no evidence for this except people using cholecalciferol skin treatments for skin conditions have raised vitamin D3 status so we know D3 is absorbed this way.

I wonder if there is anything she is taking that may be blocking the Vitamin D (Higher amounts of Vitamin A maybe?)

They usually tell you to test D3 after taking a dose for 3 months, so you might just be testing a little too soon.

Also, make sure she takes it with fat or oil.

I use the 50,000 iu D3 capsules from Bio-tech

Thanks Nancy--that '3 month' thing was the kind of info I needed. Do you guys generally feel--and I'll understand if no one wants to really commit to an answer on this--that as long as it's cholecalciferol, I should just keep her at 10k a day for now?

When you say with fat or oil, can you give me more specifics? Would real cream in coffee be sufficient, or fish oil caps, or does it need to be something more substantial? After a meal with fatty meat? I'm not sure I'd be able to get her to incorporate straight MCT/coconut oil right now with all the other stuff she is taking.

Thanks as always, you guys.

I'll also follow up on the vitamin A. The only thing I know that she takes off the top of my head is fish oil and ...coQ10 or something?