Re: Worried about Lucy

[Lernermichelle]

I actually got Red Bank hospital, the best in the state, to schedule me an appointment with an internist at the earliest date, but that is Thursday afternoon-- a long way away. I did try to talk the regular vet into just trying the Leukeran, but he wouldn't, and Lucy wasn't as bad yesterday anyway, and really I am not a vet, so maybe there would be a downside to doing that. it is a chemotherapy drug after all. i think you are supposed to wear gloves when administering it.   I resorted to baby food and dry i/d, and after a pepcid and some fluids she did eat 1.5 jars of baby food and a handful of the i/d tonight.  It will wreak havoc on her intestines, but I don't know what else to do. I tried minced turkey breast plain and she would not touch it. My mom bought duck and I cut some of that up. She seemed all excited at first but only ate two bites of it.    I think she is acting less of her usual self now. She is still playing, but not very enthusiastically.  She is purring, though, and wanted to go outside. Though she ate a whole lot of grass when she did (which also wreaks havoc on her intestines).  I found some bile vomit with grass in it in a few places in the house, but Patches often eats grass and throws up, so I am not sure it was Lucy (and if it was her, not sure if it is just because she ate grass or from the underlying condition).   Lymphoma is in the front of my mind, not the back. I feel convinced she has it.  She lost another 2 ounces today.   I upped her prednisooe to the amount they prescribe for severe IBD and for small cell lymphoma, will keep giving her pepcid and fluids, and will keep trying to feed her, until Thursday. I will fast her Thursday morning in case they want to do the biopsy and I agree.   I had decided not to let her outside at all, because she eats grass when I do and I find it all in her diarrhea and think it may be irritating her intestines. But my mom convinced me to let her out because she loves it so much, and in truth she ate more afterwards, maybe because the grass settled her stomach.  My friend's cat who has lymphoma started eating a lot of grass when he got sick, so this also has me worried.  I am pretty miserable. Not sure what else I can do, though.   Can you send me the turkey mush recipe? I will try it. Thanks, Michelle       In a message dated 7/1/2006 1:15:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: S**t Michelle, What the heck is going on with Lucy now??  It's very good that she's still acting herself for the most part.  Could it be that she's just off her food?  I'm praying it's not the dreaded lymphoma, I know that's always in the back of your mind.  Why don't you try Gypsy's turkey mush recipe and see if that helps?  It makes me so crazy that the internist's office won't make an appointment for you.  What would you do, if after the exploratory surgery they still didn't have a definitive answer about her condition?  Would you treat her for cancer anyway?  If that's what you would do, why don't you talk to your regular vet about prescribing what is necessary?  They might be more willing to do that, (heck, you'd be able to prescribe what's needed better than most vets anyway), when you tell them you took their advice, but the specialty clinic isn't able to give you an appointment.  I'm sorry sweetheart, you seem to be between that rock and hard place once again.  If it were me, (so impossible to know what I'd do until I was actually faced with it), I think I would continue to assume it is her IBD and not cancer that is causing her symptoms.  How old is Lucy again?  If her diarrhea is back, that would explain why she's not being as naughty as usual.  Do you still have her on turkey and Instincts TC?  Why don't you mince up a turkey breast, leaving out the TC and see if she gobbles it down?  Gypsy responded to plain muscle meat when she was so sick.  When you start adding supplements, you could do it  individually, that way you could play around with the ratios and see if lowering/upping them might help.  Prayers and good wishes from our tribe to yours, Nina