Cat oral

Long story short my cat hasn’t been very well took her to the vests yesterday as I thought she might have had an abscess in her mouth as her face had started to swell the vet looked and said she thinks it was an oral tumour. Fast forward to today and I come home from work she had blood and gunk down her front and her paws and a foul smell from her mouth and some of the swelling has gone. Does this happen with oral tumours or am I best getting a second opinion

Hello - what an interesting development.  I'd like to think that you don't need a second opinion; that your vet would have given their best opinion given what they could see at the time, that the situation has changed / developed and that they should review their opinion in light of the new evidence.  The devil may be in the wording of this; as a vet, I would never diagnose a tumour with no evidence.  I might say 'I'm really concerned that that looks like cancer, can we arrange to biopsy it' or 'the only thing I've seen looking similar to this is a bone tumour (or whatever)' but I would be delighted as the next person if it turned out just to be an abscess.  In answer to your question however, oral tumours can indeed become infected and abscessated, so the presence of pus certainly doesn't rule one out.  If you go to a new vet, there is no guarentee as to what they would have thought if they'd been presented with that lesion as it was yesterday.  Therefore, we would reccommend calling the vets back in case they want to offer you another appointment in the short term eg before the weekend.   Please do let us know how you get on.

A good question for your vet might be, 'What is still on your differentials (possible diagnoses list) now' and also, because I hear that you are concerned about it, 'what was my cats' temperature yesterday' (as a high temperature is a useful indicator of an abscess).  Because of the location it may be useful to know whether any teeth are involved, and furthermore that your cat has appropriate pain releif.   Best of luck.