Worried about Lucy

[Lernermichelle]

Lucy, who is positive, has had what we assume to be IBD since last October.  After an initial dosing of prednisone and tapering to only 1.25 mg every 3 days, and a change to a raw food diet, she has been doing well for the last 6 months or so. However, in the last few weeks she started to get a nib of white mucous on the end of her otherwise normal bowels, and losing weight. At this point she has degenerated to having very loose stool, pretty much diarrhea (her problem is in the colon or lower intestines, so the diarrhea is never really watery or anything), not wanting to eat much of her raw food, and she is down to 8.2 pounds (normally over 9 pounds). She is acting normal, basically, besides this-- wanting to go outside, hunting (I try not to let her do that), playing, etc.  Her only behavior change, besides not wanting her raw food much, is that she usually hides around the corner when Patches uses the litter box and hits her as she comes out (devil-- I try not to let her do this either), and she has stopped doing that. But she played with a string this morning and is bright eyed and bushy tailed, not dehydrated, etc.  She has stopped eating her raw food before and I have had to change the kind of meat I use, so it is not the first time for that. She also has lost this much weight before, as her weight fluctuates a lot, so this is not the first time for that either. But, other than when she drank a bowl of olive oil 2 months ago (yes, unbelievable as it sounds, she did drink a bowl of oil and it did not sit well with her!) she has not had diarrhea while on raw food. I put her back up to 10 mg/day of pred yesterday. She had been at 5 for the last week.   What I am worried about is intestinal lymphoma. FeLV+ cats are prone to it, as are cats with IBD, and she has both.  The only way to diagnose that is with surgical biopsy where they remove a section of intestine, but they often can not distinguish even then between severe IBD and low-grade lymphoma.  They treat both the same, with prednisone and an oral chemo drug called Leukeran (chlorambucil), and cats often do well for months to years on that.  But they often insist on trying to do the biopsy before prescribing this regimen.   I took Lucy yesterday to the local vet. He thinks I should get a biopsy at a referral center an hour away. I have not wanted to do this in the past, because it is surgery and because Lucy gets really stressed by car rides and vet visits.  But I am feeling now like I should at least go talk to an internist, because I am doing everything that has worked before, and it is not working now.  It could just be an IBD flare-up, which is what I hope, but it could be lymphoma, which can be quickly fatal without treatment. Of course, I called this morning to try to make an appointment, and they say they are only open for emergencies until Wednesday and I can not even talk to anyone to schedule an appointment until then.    If anyone has any thoughts or opinions on what is going on and what I should do, I would really appreciate it.  Nina-- I also put Lucy back on the homeopathics Darla had prescribed, also to no avail.   Thanks, Michelle