| I lost my Pharoah to Lymphoma one month ago and I give you my heart felt sympothy. Lack of eating was the reason I took him to the vet. I thought he had swallowed something and it was stuck in his belly. We found out the news from xrays as well. We did have a biopsy taken but by the time the results came back, he was already gone.
I found that the lack of eating was more disturbing to me that it seemed to be for him. From the time he stopped eating to the time he passed was 14 days. It is very difficult to know your friend needs to eat to sustain life and he wont. Even when it seemed he was interesting in eating, he simply would not. The vet told us it was due to nausia. .
For the first 2 weeks, he seemed completely normal aside from the lack of appetite and eventually, lack of bowel movements. The first few days, he had very small, soft stool but then nothing at all. He was happy, playing, totally normal. If it werent for the lack of eating, I never would have known there was anything wrong with him. By the end of the first week, I could tell he was loosing weight quickly so I became was the canine gormet , cooking and prepairing and buying everything under the sun in hopes that he would at least take a few bits of something. I even resorted to trying to force feed him with a pastry bag with Ensure, Protein Powder and Yougart....that just scared him so bad I felt bad for doing it and relented to the fact that he was simply not going to eat. I begged him to please please PLEASE eat something but the tiny 2-3 bites here and there, every few days werent going to sustain him. I tried it all and it seems from what I read that people have alot of one time successes. One time they will eat a bite or two of something, then they wont touch it again. The day Pharoah ate 1/4 cup of can dog food, I went right out and got 6 more cans. Then he wouldnt eat another bite of it. I cooked beef, chicken, fish every way possible, hamburger, eggs, rice balls, soft foods, pasta, bland food, creamy soups, broth....if it wasnt water, he wouldnt touch it. I think now that I made the eating my focus because I didnt want him to die from starvation but its the lack of eating is a normal yet heartbreaking side effect of the disease.
Treatment is very expensive and depending on the type of lymphoma, futile. Although I found out after he was gone, there would have been no cure of treatment for the type of lymphome he had.
I am sending you strength and prayers and true sympothy. We are here for you  |