Meet Tucker! Tucker is a well loved, adorable, squishy faced 16 year old Persian. He has a few things going on, but maintains a positive and snuggly attitude
He was diagnosed with early renal failure and this is being managed well with diet change and subcutaneous fluids. He has issues with chronic constipation and this is being managed when need with enemas and laxatives.
The next one is the doozy. Tucker had been peeing blood and standard urinalysis was unrewarding to the exact cause. During one of his recent exams palpation of his abdomen revealed a lot of feces which made evaluating the bladder difficult. When standard therapy for suspected urinary tract infection failed, more diagnostics were underwent to try and figure out what was happening.
Tucker had a specialist abdominal ultrasound which revealed a mass in his bladder. After further discussion Tucker was referred to a referral hospital for a specialist surgical consult; it was decided to go ahead with surgery to try and remove the mass. Tucker had about ⅓ of his bladder removed in an attempt to get wide margins for the invasive mass. The pathology report came back as a Transitional Cell Carcinoma, which is the most common cancer of the bladder. It can respond well to chemotherapy and so Tucker was then referred to a specialist Oncologist.
Tucker is currently undergoing a regiment of chemotherapy with an Oncologist and he is doing pretty good. This case demonstrates the importance of specialists in veterinary medicine. Much like human medicine there is often a need to see multiple doctors in order to get an accurate diagnosis and proper treatment.
At last update Tucker is doing well. He still has energy, eating well and gets love of love and hugs from his family at home, and here at Smith’s. We all wish Tucker the best as he proceeds with his treatments.
