Marissa,
It's good news that you've found a vet you feel you can trust, that's no
small thing. I know exactly what you mean about doing SOMETHING. So
many things have come together to give you and Slinky a fighting chance,
he just has to pull through! Prayers and healing thoughts that Slinky
responds to the meds quickly. From what I've read on the list, an HCT
of 9 is really scary, but you know what? He's still eating, he's alert,
(his temp is even down), he's telling you that he's not ready to give
up, to me that is a better indicator than any "test results" might lead
us to believe. Miracles happen every day, I'm praying hard for Slinky
and you to be one of them. Hang in there, we're all with you,
Nina
Marissa Johnson wrote:
Hi all! Thanks so much for being such a fabulous support network! I
have many families in my life...and I feel like now I have a new one:
my "feleuk family"! lol
Took Slink to a new vet tonight - the one near my house. I was very
pleased with her! She asked if his regular diet is raw (which it was
before he got sick). I told her he's eating Innova Evo and she said
her cats love it (I was impressed to find a vet who knew wat Innova
was! Then I remembered I got her name from the owner of the store
where I buy it. lol).
They did a CBC and his HCT is down to 9, but his WBC was up slightly.
His temp was 105.6! She was very real with me. She said what I had
basically been thinking: that if we didn't do something, he would
definitely die and fairly quickly. So she said we had nothing to lose
by trying things and she was willing to try whatever I wanted to.
I had faxed her 8 pages of info about IR and she'd read all of it,
PLUS did her own reading! She said she'd heard of some clinical
trials but they'd been stopped because it wasn't working...but that
she'd read further and saw that the reason they stopped them is
because they were defining success as seroconversion (testing negative
for FeLV) and that's just not going to happen. But when you look at
symptoms and quality of life, it seems like it works pretty well.
She wasn't as positive about the Epogen, wasn't sure that it would
work. But again was willing to try it. She also wanted to start him
on Prednisone since it can stimulate RBC production and would help
with some other things. So, she gave him a shot of Pred and Epogen
(we were going to wait on the Epogen so as not to start everything at
once, but decided to just go with it). She also gave me a bottle of
Doxy and sent me home with that and Pred tablets. I'm going to order
the IR (that way it will get here more quickly) and then we'll start
that as well.
Their prices are extremely reasonable as well! They'll only charge me
$20 per visit to do the IR doses (and since it's only $50 or so for
the meds, that's very affordable!). It'll be $26 for the Epogen shots
which is just paying for the medicine itself. The exam tonight was
only $48 (though with everything we did, the total bill was almost
$200). But "dad" is being wonderful and helping me out yet again!
:) Also, I can get there in about 15 minutes on the metro, so it'll
be nice and easy to go to his appointments! :)
After the appointment my friend and I dropped Slink at home (he went
straight for water! :)), and went out to dinner. When we came home a
couple hours later, his temp is now 102.8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I
did the happy dance...and he looked at me like I was nuts! lol He's
still pretty quiet, but seems much more alert and comfortable. I gave
him his clavamox, doxy, water, and vitamins...and I think it was a bit
too much cuz he coughed up some phlegm and kinda gagged on it. So
we'll be spreading that out from now on. The Clavamox is almost gone,
though. He's not crazy about having to take all that stuff but he
tolerates it pretty well.
At dinner my friend and I were talking about him and she said when she
worked at the vet she could tell when people brought their animals in
whether they should put them down or not...and she says Slinky has way
too much life left in him to put him down now. That was great to hear!!!
Anyway, that's the latest. Obviously no way to know if all this will
work, but we figure it can't hurt to try. I'm just thrilled to be
doing SOMETHING. Keep your fingers crossed and send us prayers for
his recovery! Thanks again for all your help and support!!!!
Marissa
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