Possible Lymphoma

Sorry for the long post.

My 2 year old DSH male cat had an episode a month ago where he was vomiting off and on throughout the day. Didn’t eat or drink unless I spoon fed him water. It was the weekend and late into evening when I felt like something isn’t right, but I couldn’t afford emergency vet, however I said I’d try to find him a vet the next day if he was still sick. The next morning he was acting normally again, perky, eating, drinking. But a few days later he’d start occasionally vomiting again and still wasn’t seeming like his normal self. I had made a food change recently and I’d wondered if it was the food that wasn’t agreeing with him, so I switched back to the old food. He seemingly started feeling better, but then started to decline again. Low energy, not playing, losing weight, only licking the liquid in the wet food and acting like he was in pain when chewing (like wincing, shaking his head). We took him to the vet and this is what’s been done so far:

Bloodwork- only thing the vet mentioned was liver being abnormal likely from not getting much nutrition.

Xray: possible blockage

Surgery was yesterday.

Findings: Clinical History Chronic vomiting for several weeks duration. Exploratory surgery showed complete obstruction of jejunum with distended proximal bowel. There were no contents in the distal portion. An anastamosis was performed and the scarred obstruction was removed and is being sent. Pictures of the open piece of intestine showing proximal and distal segments as well as the stricture are being sent. Suspect previous injury or lymphoma, etc.

So basically she said there was no foreign object that caused the blockage. There was a weird pinch point that was causing it. Also the thickening of the bowels had her concerned for lymphoma. She was very confused that he hadn’t had a previous blockage before. (We rescued him at around 4 months). But he has gotten into things he shouldn’t before like plants, laundry pods, etc. I have only had dogs before in the past and it was a learning curve for me at first just how high a curious cat can climb and get into stuff I never thought a cat would even be interested in. Needless to say, our curious boy doesn’t have the best survival instincts.

We agreed on biopsy and waiting with bated breath on results. He is on 4 medications and we are having to syringe feed him because he isn’t showing an interest in eating just yet. His surgery was less than 24 hours ago. I’m hoping he will regain his appetite but right now our main concern is if he can keep the food down. They fed him at the vet yesterday and he hasn’t vomited since. We fed him breakfast about 1.5 hours ago and so far so good. He has peed just a little so far.

I also have a picture of the intestine but can’t post it here.

How likely is this lymphoma in such a young cat? Why is my vet surprised that he hasn’t had a previous blockage? She mentioned something how it looked like scar tissue? Apparently this was a pretty complicated surgery. I’m just so worried my baby isn’t going to make it and my heart is breaking.