The Million Dollar Disease

I adopted a very sweet cat from the pound 2 years ago. She is the most loveable, sweet cat ever and has turned me into the craziest cat person! :)

About two months my DH was home alone with the cat when she started having violent seizures. I was about 10 minutes away and when I got home we decided immediately to take her to the emergency vet clinic. (It was at night and we live about 30 minutes away from the city)

After months of vets and tests and money, a few experts in the field think she probably has pancreatic tumors. They cause her insulin level to skyrocket, which in turn causes her blood sugar to fall dangerously low, which then causes her to seizure. (Her blood sugar has been tested at 31, and normal values are anywhere from 150-300)

The short term fix was to put her on prednisone (a steroid) to help maintain her blood sugar at a high level that she won't have more seizures. However, I am having trouble trying to decide what to do for the long term. You see, this disease is fairly common in ferrets and happens occasionaly with dogs, but it is very rare in cats - only 5-6 documented cases in old, male, Siamese cats. One vet said: "Your cat has a million dollar disease". I would rather have the million dollars.

She is only 6 years old. We could have surgery to remove some of the tumors from the pancreas. However, this surgery is difficult and dangerous and will not remove all of the insulnomas (tumors). In fact, we don't even know for sure if they ARE any tumors! We had an ultrasound done which did not show any, but in most cases they are too small to even be seen.

Has anyone had an experience with insulnomas or pancreatic cancer with their pets? I love her so much and want to do the best thing. Do I leave her on steroids to live out her life, or try to extend her life a year or so with the possiblility of losing her on the surgery table?

Sorry to make this so lengthy. It is so hard to deal with.

Thanks, Meribah