The Problem Child (357/365)

December 23, 2015 – Yes, that’s Loki, he’s the current problem child.

Now if we could only figure out what the problem is….

We spent hours at the vet clinic for a consult with a specialist yesterday. Loki was most uncooperative with the tests and so the only thing they managed was a blood sample to send out for another blood cell count, but even that plus the consult cost us a small fortune.

I spent all day on tenterhooks waiting for the results. The specialist had said that if she hadn’t called by 4pm, to call her….so at 4:20 I called the clinic and was told that Dr. Ford was in a meeting and had been swamped all day, but that she would call this evening.

And she did, eventually.

She said that the blood results had come back and that she’d double checked the name because the haematocrit was up to 27%, that’s a 10% increase in a little over a week. Platelets and lymphocytes were up as well, but that may just be compensatory. Reticulocytes were also up, and that’s very good because it means that his anaemia is still regenerative. His liver enzymes are good, and his blood sugars are also good, so no liver problems and no diabetes.

All of that means that we still don’t know what the problem is, but that the steroid treatment seems to be helping. It means that it is looking more like an immune mediated anaemia, but could still be lymphoma.

Regardless, it means a bit of breathing room and status quo on treatment for another 10-14 days, at which time we will have another blood cell count done and see where we are then.

And we thought he’d be the easy one…. turns out that they are both problems. If only we could figure out where the root of the problem lies….

In the meantime he is hoovering up everything we feed him and when I look at him all I can think is that if we introduced him to anyone as a cat who has lost ten percent of his body mass, mostly as muscle, and has severe anaemia…they would think I’d lost my mind!