My cat with cancer has suddenly running nose? help??

My cat her name is Pixie, 14 years spayed female, weight loss over 6-ish months, paired with diarrhea and inappetence. anyway last week i took her to the vet as she is very thin and the vet palpated her abdomen and said that she has cancer, presumably small cell intestinal lymphoma or possibly adenocarcinoma, and possibly "some other thing with a long funny name". no biopsy or FNA of this, but i agree with her its likely cancer. Anyway with no tests whatsoever she gave a bottle of prednisolone and sent us away(???). The runny nose started a day before the prednisolone anyway so it is not related. been a week of nose running, clear mucous, just like a patch on her fur under her nose where its been running. Pixie also sneezes sometimes mainly when she is up and about. Her eyes watered a bit one day, but not again since. My only guess is that the cancer perhaps metastasized to her upper respiratory tract, but i have no idea i am 15 years old anyway, not an oncologist. So what is causing the running nose? perhaps loss of immune function also contributed, maybe she caught an illness that my other cat did not? i do not know? no allergies in her life before, or any new known environmental triggers in house. So in summary, probably small cell intestinal lymphoma (mass in abdomen) possibly adenocarcinoma instead, no known allergies, 14 year old spayed female cat, on prednisolone now but is unrelated. clear mucous, runny nose.

Hello and thankyou for this excellent description and thinking around of what is going on with your cat.  It sounds to me as though your vet palpated multiple swellings and concluded that together with the symptoms, cancer is the most likely cause.  You are correct however, that a sample tends to be needed to make a diagnosis; questions for your vet (or indeed a second opinion vet) might include, What other diseases could cause this pattern of symptoms?  Are there grounds for a definitive diagnosis of cancer - can they completely rule out other forms of disease e.g. inflammatory and infectious causes e.g. foreign body or fungal disease causing those lumps?  Would a clinical test (biopsy, X-rays etc) or referral be useful at this stage?  If cancer is present, it is usual to stage it - to find out what kind it is and how far it has progressed - before moving forward with treatment. Obviously more tests would cost money / quality of life while they were happening, but if your vet had made a decision to avoid a further work-up on any basis, it would be normal to discuss this with you.  I have never met your cat; from your description, I cannot rule out cancer, fungal disease, viral infectious disease or worms.  However, your vet has much more information available to them than I do about how they came to this diagnosis so perhaps they (or if you don't feel that you could talk to them, a different vet for  second opinion) would be a good place to start. As for the discharge, sometimes discharges can increase when infection gets worse- and this can happen with steroids.  It can also happen with worsening disease or if the discharge had been pooling somewhere and was then suddenly released.  Again, an in-cat examination would be useful for this.  Part of a vets' job is to ensure that the owner understands the fully picture of how a diagnosis has been reached - please do ask more questions in order to fully understand this case.  

The developing runny nose is a developing symptom and by itself, necessitates an appointment.  You could book this in with a second vet or your own.