- Joined
- Sep 1, 2009
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- 10,295
Lily is 10 years old and was not spayed as a kitten. She had health issues that made surgery a very bad option for her. About a week and a half ago, she started having some blood/urine issues. I took her to the vet thinking it was a urinary tract infection. They gave her an antibiotic injection and drew a urine sample. It turns out it is not a UTI so the vet says it is a problem with her uterus.
The vet recommended doing a full ovariohysterectomy. Her reasoning sounds good. (has to do with the shape of the uterus and the tendency for infections to get stuck and not fully treated with antibiotics plus a couple of other things she mentioned that make removal sound like it is worth the risk)
DH is still out of work. We can manage the surgery ($200 initial exam, $200+ blood test, $400 surgery) but the vet is recommending sending the uterus (and ovaries?) to a lab for biopsy to make sure there isn't cancer. That would add another $200 on to the procedure. We can do it if we have to, but would rather not spend the money just because.
She is 10 years old with other health issues. If she has cancer (especially in the abdominal area), we will NOT choose to treat as we feel that would be unfair to her. We would keep her as happy and comfortable as possible and make the necessary choice when the time came.
Clearly, I hope she does not have cancer. Hopefully it is all just hypothetical!
That said -- Do we biopsy or not?
Is there any sort of thing they would be looking for that would be easily treatable? Can anyone think of a situation where we would regret not having the biopsy? I asked the vet and she just repeated that the biopsy would let us know that was coming. The vet's assistant talked with me when I took Lily in for the blood draw and said that it was really just because "people usually want to know" so they can prepare.
Surgery is Thursday morning. I have to make a decision by then..... help, please!
The only downside to skipping it that I can think of is that she may have a health issue in the future that would leave us having to do a different test to try to confirm or rule out something we could already have checked for. But then I figure the vet would still do the other test anyway to confirm that it actually was that and not some other thing we could do something about.
The vet recommended doing a full ovariohysterectomy. Her reasoning sounds good. (has to do with the shape of the uterus and the tendency for infections to get stuck and not fully treated with antibiotics plus a couple of other things she mentioned that make removal sound like it is worth the risk)
DH is still out of work. We can manage the surgery ($200 initial exam, $200+ blood test, $400 surgery) but the vet is recommending sending the uterus (and ovaries?) to a lab for biopsy to make sure there isn't cancer. That would add another $200 on to the procedure. We can do it if we have to, but would rather not spend the money just because.
She is 10 years old with other health issues. If she has cancer (especially in the abdominal area), we will NOT choose to treat as we feel that would be unfair to her. We would keep her as happy and comfortable as possible and make the necessary choice when the time came.
Clearly, I hope she does not have cancer. Hopefully it is all just hypothetical!
That said -- Do we biopsy or not?
Is there any sort of thing they would be looking for that would be easily treatable? Can anyone think of a situation where we would regret not having the biopsy? I asked the vet and she just repeated that the biopsy would let us know that was coming. The vet's assistant talked with me when I took Lily in for the blood draw and said that it was really just because "people usually want to know" so they can prepare.
Surgery is Thursday morning. I have to make a decision by then..... help, please!
The only downside to skipping it that I can think of is that she may have a health issue in the future that would leave us having to do a different test to try to confirm or rule out something we could already have checked for. But then I figure the vet would still do the other test anyway to confirm that it actually was that and not some other thing we could do something about.