Buttercup is sick

Over the last couple of months our kitty, Buttercup, has been losing weight. At first we just figured it was due to her losing some of her teeth last year and being on a softer food diet. Then in April shortly after I got back from Utah I noticed a small scratch on her chin. It didn't look good at all so I called the vet the next morning and got her right in. The vet, who is not the normal vet we see, said that it looked like nothing but gave me some antibiotics for her just in case. I gave as much as I could to Buttercup and the sore healed pretty quick so I didn't worry about it. Even though the vet at the time made mention of her weight loss she didn't seem all that concerned. I wish now that she would have looked into it more. Since we took her in for that appointment, Buttercup has continued to lose weight and this last couple of weeks I noticed a dramatic change in her. As soon as I could on Monday. The vet (BC normal vet thank goodness) said that her weight loss was definitely not normal and wanted to run some bloodwork. She said that it could either be something with her thyroid since she was still eating fairly good or it could possibly be a tumor.

Today the vet called with some very bad news. The blood work came back showing that Buttercup has a very low red blood count. The pathologist's conclusion was that the feline leukemia has become active and has gotten into Buttercup's bone marrow and that's whey she isn't producing any new red blood cells. She is now down to 7 lbs! I feel horrible that we didn't take more action sooner when we saw her losing the weight. She was and really still is quite active that I just figured that the weight loss was actually doing her some good. The vet said there really isn't much we can do for her now other than keep her comfortable and try and get her to eat as much as possible. I am still praying for a miracle that maybe by gaining some weight she'll go into remission or something. Since she is anemic from the low red blood count there is the possibility of doing a blood transfusion but the vet said that would only buy her about a month. We are going to see how this next week goes and then make a decision on what to do. I am just not ready to let her go yet! If doing at least one blood transfusion gets me at least another month to be with her then that's what I want to do if we can afford it. She is actually still doing pretty well so I am hoping that as long as we stay on top of things from this point on and keep in regular contact with the vet that may she'll be able to pull through for a bit longer. I just can't bear to lose her right now but I also don't want her to suffer either. I need to do some more research about feline leukemia so if anyone knows anything about this disease please let me know!