a battle for kira kitty

well, once again, this is my first post in a while. unfortunately, it's not for a good reason.

starting in late august, kira came down with what seemed at the time to be a cold: runny nose, sneezing, and watery eye. this isn't unusual for kira; we have thought for a while that she has feline herpes. she'll periodically have these same symptoms, they'll last for a few days, then they'll subside. this time, though, after two weeks or so the symptoms did not go away.

luckily, her regular vet appointment was scheduled for mid-september, so she was going to see the vet anyway- good timing. the vet prescribed her antibiotics, and we started on them. unfortunately, they were liquid, and she didn't always swallow everything. when the first course ended and she wasn't better, we started on a second course. by the time the second course started, she had gotten quite good at drooling and spitting out a lot of the antibiotic.

a few days after she finished her second course of antibiotics, i came home from work on a friday afternoon to find that a nickel-sized lump had grown on her forehead, just between her eyes. i took her to the emergency veterinary clinic that evening, and after waiting for a long time (there were a lot of emergencies that night), the doc that examined her told me that he thought she had an abcess. (that's when an animal gets injured and a bacterial infection starts in the wound, causing the animal's body to try to fight the infection by encapsulating it in fluid. a large lump forms under the skin.)

i thought it odd, because kira rarely gets involved in scuffles with the other cats, she doesn't go outside, and she didn't have a mark on her! the vet recommended opening up the abcess and cleaning it out. i asked if it would be OK to take her to my vet on monday, and he said that as long as she didn't run a temperature and didn't stop eating and drinking, it would be fine.

i made an appointment on monday, and kira's doc took a look at her. she felt, as i did, that it probably wasn't an abcess. however, she said we'd know for sure by hitting her with a round of antibiotics. if this was an abcess, it was small, and the clavamox would kick it for sure. this time we did pills, and by the end of the course, the lump had gone down, her nasal symptoms had cleared up, and even the eye was watering less.

three days later, however, the lump was back full force. in addition, there was some swollen, pink tissue inside of kira's right nostril. i brought kira back to the vet, and she took some xrays of kira's head and got a sample of the swollen tissue. (kira was very good for the xrays, by the way, she lay totally still and did not need anesthesia!) the vet couldn't find anything conclusive from the cytology or the xrays, although we could see that kira's sinus seemed to be somewhat full. doc recommended that we go to an internist at the emergency care facility.

we were able to get an appointment for kira this past wednesday so she could have a CT scan, more xrays, and get a better picture of what was happening. i stayed with kira through the consultation (except for the xrays and samples- i was in the waiting room for those.) they were able to get some time on another clinic's CT machine, so i left kira there so that the techs could take her for the CT that afternoon.

unfortunately, the results of the CT were not good. kira has a mass growing in her head that has filled her right nostril; it's also behind her right eye and in her sinus. it's destroyed part of her orbital bone (the bone just underneath the eye near the nose), and it's what accounts for the lump on her forehead.

kira stayed at the clinic until last night due to an incident with her breathing on the way back from the CT scan, and she had a biopsy on the mass yesterday morning to determine what type of cancer she has.

i'm antsy to find out answers now... we should hear about the test results sometime next week. i'm ready to find out what our options are so we can get going on helping her. i really hope we can. we should also hear from the oncologist next week.

i'll try to keep posting...