Mouse's SCC of the Tongue

First of all I'd like to say thank-you very much for your website, it has been extremely helpful during the Mouse's fight with SCC.  I have given an account of his illness below and will try to get a scanned photo of him if you'd like to add my account to your website.  I hope you are doing well and I'm glad you have a new cat, Muffin in your life - she looks adorable.

 

Mouse was diagnosed with oral SCC on 8 November 2005.  He had been drooling for a couple of days over the weekend and we took him to the vets where she diagnosed a probable tumour on the underside of his tongue.  The vet kept him in and did a biopsy on the same day, which ultimately proved to be positive.

 

So began the hardest couple of months of my life.  As with so many of the experiences that I have read on your site, The Mouse was just a huge part of our lives.  He was a unique cat, highly intelligent and always did things his way - very often just to be contrary I think.  He was unusual in colouring (Grey and White) and very striking looking, all white around his face and mane.  I still can't imagine life without him!  He was 14 when he died.

 

For about a week after his biopsy eating became a real ordeal for him - but because he was a naturally greedy boy, he persevered.  Once the biopsy healed, there was a marked difference in his ability to eat much better, although this was short-lived.  As the tumour grew, it became harder and harder and we offered a very wide range of food for him to try, including the prescribed Science AD diet for its high calorific count and soft consistency.  His medication was a steroid called Dexadresson, which was designed to alleviate inflammation and also gave him a huge appetite.  This was good and bad.  On the good side, he never gave up eating right until the last day - but on the bad side it was incredibly sad to try and watch him constantly battling to get the food in his mouth, keep it there and swallow it.  He developed a superb shoveling technique to get the food in his mouth that I can only describe as ingenious.  By the second week in December the tumour had grown so much that it had pushed his tongue out of the right side of his mouth permanently.  I tried to imitate eating in these circumstances from a plate on the floor, with my tongue stuck out of the side of my mouth and no help from my hands - I found it impossible.  His perseverance was remarkable - but knowing him and his character, not surprising.

 

As well as a constant struggle to keep him eating food that he could manage and hopefully enjoy to a certain extent, it was so sad to see the degeneration of his appearance.  Because he was still attempting to groom himself, he constantly rubbed food and dirt all over his face and his paws (which were white).  We started bathing him a couple of times a week and washing his face with warm water a couple of times a day.  We also groomed him with a semi-hard bristled brush.  But none of these techniques came close to his own ability to keep himself immaculately groomed as he did prior to his illness - another heartbreaking fact about this cruel and aggressive illness.

 

Because we didn't want to cause any further trauma to his mouth we arranged with our vet so that we could give him injections twice daily of the Dexadresson and also when he was on antibiotics (a lot of the time during his last few weeks) we also used an injectable form.  I can recommend this highly in place of oral, tablet treatment - it is a bit scary at first, but it doesn't take long to learn how to do it.  Our vet gave us very clear and helpful instructions and I practiced on oranges before injecting the Mouse.  He was superb and rarely made a murmur - as I say, it's amazing how quickly you can learn to do it effectively.

 

The tumour on his tongue grew at a fast rate and his tongue was pushed further and further out of the side of his mouth.  In the final weeks of his illness, part of it started to wither and bits started dropping off.  Also during his final weeks, his muscles started to waste away and all his bones along his back and hind quarters were visible.  Considering he was a very large cat, this was extremely distressing to see.  He also developed chronic conjunctivitis from his continued attempts to wash his face and getting food and dirt into them.  His final few days were heartbreaking for us - his breathing had become laboured and difficult and he was suffering from extreme anemia.  The vet advised us that it was time to end his life as it was no longer fair to keep him alive.  We took him home that night unable to go through with it there and then, but eventually made an appointment for a couple of days later.

 

The Mouse adored going for rides in the car (like Snoop) and we made sure we took him out for short drives regularly during his illness, but his final journey to the vets on 20 January 2006, was horrendous.  We got to the vets and waited in the car until we were due to go in to the surgery - our usual vet was away that day and we had a horrible replacement vet who just seemed so inefficient making the experience harder than ever.  Although the veterinary nurse was superb and did everything she could to make us and him comfortable.  We took him down with his blanket, toys and photo's and she arranged him with them really nicely before storing him in the freezer (god that sounds awful) - we then arranged to drive him to the crematorium a few days later.  The staff at the crematorium were also extremely nice and we had as much time as we wanted to say goodbye to him and to talk to them about the process.  We then arranged to take him home in a specially chosen mahogany box, with his name engraved on top.  He now has pride of place in the middle of our coffee table.  We weighed up the pro's and con's of burying him, but as we don't plan to stay in our house much longer, we decided we'd prefer to keep him with us wherever we go.

 

One of the things that I have found helpful to me during the grieving process (which is still very raw) - was to put together a collage of photo's of him taken throughout his life.  I have put them in a really lovely frame and mounted it on the wall in our house.  My partner and I also talk about him regularly - I know that the pain will never go away, but by talking about him and having reminders of him all around us, we are giving him the memory he deserves.