Swollen cat paw

Swollen paw My cat is almost 12 years old, a neutered male, and has had a swollen paw for about a month now. At first I thought it was just his outermost toe bean which looks bigger than normal, but the top of that side of his paw feels bigger too. He’s still walking on it normally, climbing, and scratching his scratch post, and acting normal in general. I took him to see a vet who said it might be an infection, broken bone, some other random benign bone changes, or very unlikely something like bone cancer. She said he is not in any pain which is why it’s unlikely to be “something dangerous” like bone cancer, because those things are usually very painful. He got the antibiotic synolux and loxicom anti inflammatory for 10 days which didn’t reduce the swelling so I think that rules out an infection. The next thing we can do is get an X-ray but I’m a little bit hesitant due to his age and that they’d have to put him under to perform the X-ray, or alternatively just leave it alone since it’s not bothering him, but I also don’t really want to do that incase it IS something worse. So I’d just like some second opinions on what it may be and if there’s any other alternative tests etc that we could do first that would be less invasive. I have attached photos of his paw 

Hello.  I am interested in the colour difference of the affected toe pads - is this a recent change? because if so, it may need to be flagged up.  I'm afraid that we do not give second opinions on cases here.  Your vet has seen and examined your cat to an extent that I cannot, so it is unlikely that I would have a better understanding of the case than your vet - indeed, the opposite is true.    In my general experience, sonething dangerous such as cancer can indeed be non painful, particularly in the soft tissues - and furthermore, it is difficult to reliably assess pain in a cat in any case, unless it is definitely present - especially in a vets' room where they might be internally stressed and therefore masking any discomfort.  Good questions for your vet - who might opt to run this by a pathologist - may include, whether radiographs,  biopsy or even digit removal would be the most helpful in assessing the case further at this stage.  Bone cancer is difficult to identify radiographically and soft tissue swellings might simply show up as just that - a swelling - on a radiograph, so in some cases biopsy might turn out to be better.  However, I cannot stress enough that do not know the ins and ours of this case.  A positive outcome of Covid is that clinicians, pathologists and specialists are more likely to have long distant chats than they used to, so your vet will be able to ask such questions of a specialist if they have any concerns.