Some of you may remember, Tuxedo was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease a little over a year ago. It causes his system to attack his red blood cells as if they were a virus. He went on immune suppression drugs (first leukeran, then 5mg of prednisone twice a day), and for a while there had to have daily shots of human drugs that caused his bone marrow to produce red and white blood cells again (epogen and nupogen). The Epogen and Nupogen worked, and kicked his bone marrow back into production mode. We kept him on immune suppression until sometime back in February, when his red blood cell count normalized and stabilized (40 is average normal, below 24 is anemic). Doc had us start weaning him off the prednisone. Everything was going fine. But once we switched to once every other day, his red blood cell count fell off the map again (to 17 from 33). We immediately put him back on prednisone twice a day - and it didn't change. So we started him on Epogen again. Climbed back up to 23. (He's been at the vet every other day for several weeks now). Then it climbed to 27, and we were all so relieved. The next visit - it had fallen to 17. No known reason. Just that cats, sometimes, stop responding to epogen.
That was last friday. Monday it was still 17. Today it was 16. We've already consulted all the experts, and our vet has spent the last week doing more research. Just in case they missed testing him for a blood-borne disease, they've put him on doxycycline (sp?). Not helping. He's on specially made iron supplements. All the vet could come up with is switching him from prednisone to an anabolic steroid. It's being compounded for him now, and we can pick it up tomorrow morning.
Tuxie's nose, mouth and foot pads are so white. And he doesn't do much except sleep. He does come to visit us in the kitchen or the bedroom from time to time, and all we can do is try to keep our spirits up for his sake. He's gone from 10.5 pounds to 9 pounds - and is losing about an ounce a day now. The problem is not that he's not eating - he is. It's that his system isn't metabolizing it the way it should. If the anabolic steroids don't work, if things keep moving at the pace they have been, Tuxie's only got several weeks left to live.
That was last friday. Monday it was still 17. Today it was 16. We've already consulted all the experts, and our vet has spent the last week doing more research. Just in case they missed testing him for a blood-borne disease, they've put him on doxycycline (sp?). Not helping. He's on specially made iron supplements. All the vet could come up with is switching him from prednisone to an anabolic steroid. It's being compounded for him now, and we can pick it up tomorrow morning.
Tuxie's nose, mouth and foot pads are so white. And he doesn't do much except sleep. He does come to visit us in the kitchen or the bedroom from time to time, and all we can do is try to keep our spirits up for his sake. He's gone from 10.5 pounds to 9 pounds - and is losing about an ounce a day now. The problem is not that he's not eating - he is. It's that his system isn't metabolizing it the way it should. If the anabolic steroids don't work, if things keep moving at the pace they have been, Tuxie's only got several weeks left to live.
