Approximately one month after my other cat passed of cancer March 2026, my youngest cat started to show signs of something wrong. Around April 8th he started throwing up all of his Kirkland brand hard food that he’d been on with no issues for years and there was tinges of blood in the bile. We tried switching to another flavour of Kirkland with no luck, we then switched to Friskies soft food and he would throw that up too. We then switched to Fancy Feast gems soft food and he could eat that, then about a week into eating it he started throwing that up too with more reddish colour blood showing. He would hide most of the day under my oldest son’s bed and had a bad limp, worse than usual as he has a stump for his 4th leg as he was born that way. We took him in for blood work and X-rays, some of his bloodwork came back elevated but the vet said it was indicative of a stress response. The X-rays showed the stomach walls thickened and some fluid in his abdomen I believe it was. The vet figured we could treat for gastritis and prescribed some liquid medication and also told me to give him some Pepcid ac for 10 days. About 5 days later the medication still wasn’t working and my cat now started refusing all food but only licking the sauce off the soft food. Still throwing up etc, we booked the next available appointment with the vet a week away for an ultrasound. This was this past Thursday, April 30th he was diagnosed with Lymphoma. We brought him home decided we would feed him a blend of boiled chicken breast, chicken stock, and the water it was boiled in. He immediately ate it and didn’t throw up. For the next 72 hours after he hasn’t thrown up, has been back to eating his soft food, the chicken paste, and some hard food as well, back to seeking comfort from us and laying with us the majority of the day purring up a storm. Can anyone shed some light on what could be happening because I’m so confused. My other cat I lost to cancer a month and a half ago had a day of “rallying” where his energy was up and then he further declined. This is entirely different and I don’t know what to think.
Signalment (species, age, sex/neuter status, breed, body weight): Black long haired domestic, 11 years old, neutered, 15.38 lbs
Short history
Clinical signs (vomiting, coughing, fever etc): vomited up all food with blood
Length of time you have seen these changes: 72 hours for the improvements. It was 2-3 weeks of constant vomiting regardless of what he was fed.
Links to any vet reports, test results, X-rays etc. that you already have: The results of the ultrasound were: ABD U/S of Stomach as per PUG.
Regional ABD U/S: Muscularis of the stomach is markedly thickened. Ventrally measures 1.13cm,
dorsally measures by 1.75 cm.
Concerned for diffuse neoplasia. Lymphoma? (vs Other).
Your general location: New Brunswick Canada
EDIT: I got the bloodwork emailed to me. The following was noted at 8:52 am on April 23rd
The LYM is marked as low 0.57 x 10^9/L the reference interval being 0.92-6.88
EOS marked as low 0.14 x 10^9/L the reference interval being 0.17-1.57
PLT was within normal range.
The following bloodwork was noted at 9:15am on April 23rd
The LYM is marked as low 0.66 x 10^9/L the reference interval being 0.92-6.88
EOS marked as low 0.13 x 10^9/L the reference interval being 0.17-1.57
PLT marked as low 103K/ɥL the reference interval being 151-600
At 9:00 am his GLOB was marked as high 55 g/L the reference interval being between 28-51
Further Edit: Today is May 4th he just got sick again for the first time in 3 days after eating a small bit of his hard food. He threw up mostly bile with some small chunks of food and noticeable blood in the bile.