Lily is our beautiful tortoiseshell kitty - she’s 8 years old and has been with us since the day she was born. Her mama lives with us as well, and the two bring us joy and companionship daily.

In October, our sweet cat Lily started to get sick and quickly showed signs of getting worse. We took Lily to the vet, thinking that she’d eaten something ridiculous and ended up with a bowel obstruction.

At our primary vet, X-rays revealed she definitely had something in her stomach, so she was taken quickly to exploratory abdominal surgery. This surgery soon yielded unexpected (and devastating) news for us: our sweet girl has a massive tumor in her stomach, threatening to block the entry to her intestines, and signs of a swollen lymph node nearby.

As soon as Lily was stable from her surgery, our primary vet called around to find 24/7 care for her that had an available oncologist, due to fear of a possible cancer taking over Lily’s body. Once we were given the go-ahead, we rushed Lily to PennVet (UPenn Ryan) in Philadelphia, where she spent 2 nights in round-the-clock care and underwent an abdominal ultrasound and further testing of the concerning growth in her stomach, her lymph node, and one of her kidneys.

Initial biopsies have come back, confirming our biggest fears: there are definitely cancerous processes occurring in Lily’s little body. The vets are leaning towards a lymphoma diagnosis, but we are all (im)patiently waiting for the return of further test results to confirm this for certain.

As of now, Lily is on a steady course of pain meds, nausea medication and stronger pain meds as necessary, and has started a long course of steroids to begin shrinking her tumor while we await her further results, but the anticipation is that we will soon be starting her on a 19- to 20-week course of chemotherapy (CHOP protocol). This means we will be making long weekly drives to her appointments so our sweet little girl can fight this nightmare into remission.

Gas, medications, a wet-food-only diet, and vet bills are expensive. Every cent will be put towards Lily’s vet bills and ongoing care, so we can keep our girl as happy, healthy, and comfortable as possible!