Making Dreams Come True .............................

Our good friend Savannah is working on a  “Paw It Forward Project“ , you can read all about it here.

She is trying to help Rachel & Ray Charles find their forever castle. They are currently being fostered by Selina from One Eye On the Future. They has their own page on her blog so you can learn all about them.

And Dash kitten is trying to help Blue find a home and Jennifer find a place to live with her cats.

Many of you know Socks has been under the weather and has had to go to a specialty vet. If anyone would like to donate toward his vet bills you can donate via paypal our account is alasandra (@) cableone (dot) net For donations over $10 Mommy will do a graphic for you. Blog Header, Facebook Banner, special occasion badge whatever you would like. For those of you unfamiliar with Socks' mystery illness.

July 30th Socks was taken to the vet due to acting lethargic. At that time his popliteal lymph nodes and right inguinal lymph node were enlarged. He was started on Vitamin B12 and given a 14 day injectable antibiotic.

June 31st - Return to the vet large swelling in the area of the submandibular and salivary glands, which was NOT present on the 30th. The Left popliteal lymph node was larger then the day before. A blood panel was done and a biopsy was scheduled for first thing the following day. After the biopsy he was sent home with another antibiotic to take orally.

The biopsy came back with no diagnosis other then the cat is responding to some immune stimulation.

We were ecstatic that no cancer was found and Socks really seemed to be getting better.  Then he got much worse. 



August 19th - Socks' stopped eating the night before. Patient is weak pale muccus membranes, slight hypersalivation, Grade I/VI murmur on right side empty gastrointestinal tract, severely enlarged salivary glands, right popliteral lymph node is enlarged (possibly due to recent biopsy). Recommended he be taken to MedVet Medical & Cancer Centers for Pets in Mandeville, Louisianna for additional test.

Medvet did an abdominal ultrasound, IV catheter, IV fluids, blood transfusion, a bone marrow aspirate/biopsy, spleen biopsy, cbc, thoracic radiographs he is also hospitalized.

August 20th - Socks has to stay another day. After the blood transfusion last night his PCV (packed cell volume) was 19%, this morning it had dropped to 17%. They want to make sure that it stabilizes at 17% or increases (a normal PCV for cats is 24-45%) before they let him come home.

They got some of the test results back and the good news is there is no sign of cancer at least not yet. The Feline Leukemia bone marrow test is still pending. Also the PCV has gone up to 22% (Great news) and socks is eating. They think the thyroid medicine may be causing his immune system to go haywire, but they haven't ruled out tick borne diseases or another sort of pathogen. At the moment they have taken him off his thyroid medication and he is receiving antibiotics and steroids.

August 21st - Socks PCV was back to 17%  (not good but at least he got to come home), his white cells are working again.  He will go to his regular vet August 26th (Monday) for blood work. Assuming he recovers from this we will have to find a new way to treat his thyroid at the moment it isn't a priority as IF he doesn't recover from the anemia the thyroid issues are moot. We will be taking this one day at a time.   

Socks is happy to be home and is eating and drinking. He is taking Prednisiodone, Famotidine, Zeniquin and Doxycycline. The  antibiotics are in case this is some sort of infection and the steroid  is because this is acting like an Auto-Immune Disease (Lupus).  They will gradually wean him off the steroids.  One theory is that the thyroid medication triggered an auto immune response.  He may wind up in a medical journal as he has stumped the specialist.

Our dream is to have a happy and healthy Sockie -Pooh.

~Alasandra, The Cats & Dogs