Pathology report is not good.

The vet just called. She first asked how Lee-Roy was doing and I told her he was refusing to use the stairs we had for him to get onto the bed. She had a smile in her voice when she asked, "He's stubborn, is he?" I could tell she knew from the brief time she had him at the hospital just how headstrong he is.

Then she said they got the pathology report back. I could tell it wasn't good from her tone. She said it shocked everyone there to find out it's an ill-defined tumor. The report said "carcinoma" which is cancer. She said she was going to confer with an Oncologist to see what experience they'd had with feline lung tumors that didn't kill the cat after so much time. Lee-Roy's cancer is unique in her experience because he's fine otherwise. He hasn't lost weight or acted ill except when the pneumonia was at its worst.

I said, "He's unique, then," and she kind of chuckled and said there was "no doubt about that!"

I told her that Eric wouldn't go for chemo because we only recently saw my dad go through it and he didn't want to subject a cat to that horror. She said this type of tumor wasn't responsive to chemo anyway. The best thing to do is to remove it.

So now we wait for her to get a call back from the Oncologist to see if there's any clue as to what the future holds for our sweet boy.

Oncologist report

There is no cure for feline lung cancer. They don't get the chance to track most cats because people get the diagnosis and disappear off their radar. This may be a cancer that formed because of the constant infection in Lee-Roy's lung. How do I tell Eric that? He's already upset with himself for not doing something sooner. Since Lee-Roy is his cat, I let him call the shots. Now I wish I'd pushed harder earlier. Hindsight is 20-20.

When cats have their tumors removed, some last a month or two and some last a year or more. Because they aren't able to track most of the cats they've treated, they don't know statistics. We won't know which group Lee-Roy falls into until time passes.

He coughed a little last night. He's irritable today. I think I'll give him some pain meds before I go to do some errands. We peeled the pain patch off his paw last night. It was stuck to his fur. Poor guy hissed when I pulled it off, then went back to scarfing down Scamperdoo's dinner. He nipped at Eric when he tried first.

Anyway, the vet said everyone there had fallen in love with Lee-Roy and they were all pulling for him. They know just how special he is.