Tuesday Evening

And another email...

Hello again:

I just got back from visiting Butterscotch at the hospital. If you've ever wondered whether vet hospitals have visiting hours, now you know they do. Unfortunately, one isn't able to hang out for hours visiting, wishing the dog on the other side of the curtain would stop making that really icky sound - they limit visits to 15 minutes and the doc or attending assistant need to be present.

The boy finished his blood transfusion (he's Type A) at about 3 pm. His blood count (PCV) is now up from 6 to 12, yet still short of the normal 40. However, he's more awake, his color is somewhat better, and he's complaining some - this is a good thing. He looks to be resting comfortably on his warm water blanket, if not slightly sulkily. He's now got three shaved patches on his body where the mean humans have poked him - oh the indignity - and he has a catheter in his front right leg for transfusions, saline and drugs as needed. I won't do more than simply mention the temperature checks... He's been eating and drinking and doing the normal activities that those two lead to. He's even cleaning.

There are no blood parasites. His spleen is enlarged, as is his heart slightly, which isn't surprising. They did a test to look for baby red blood cells and found close to none, which indicates his bone marrow isn't producing red blood cells, although it is producing white. X-rays didn't turn up anything that looks like cancer. Whatever is wrong with him has been happening for a while, since normally if a cat were to drop to 6 quickly, they would be panting, etc. His body has had time to adjust to the low blood count. His behavior lately certainly told me nothing.

Tomorrow morning they will do an ultrasound (or some such) on his abdomen. If that doesn't turn up anything, they'll take some marrow from his left humorous to check out in the afternoon. If it's lymphoma, that's bad; if it's not, his marrow could perk back up with steroids depending upon the cause. They can't give him more blood right now lest he build an immunity it - they have to use that sparingly. Dr. Wagner explained that I was lucky to live in Madison where there is an abundant supply of cat blood (where do they get it?), as opposed to some folks who need to drive hours. I'm glad she's working with him - she seems very caring. She liked the idea that there were lots of folks who were thinking about him.

Thank you to all who have called or sent supportive emails. I'll not try and explain how much that has meant to me. It did make for a challenging workday, where in the middle of writing some complex code I'd receive an email and get all bleary-eyed.

When I left the hospital I was driving home along Observatory Drive, and came to a stop at an intersection behind an Outback that had as its license plate EMOTE. I laughed out loud - I didn't need the encouragement.

This one's a toughie. I have a feeling I'll be learning what's up by the end of day tomorrow. I'm feeling myself preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. Thank you all for keeping the thoughts coming.

Love,

Jay