ER visit to the Vet

Friday night we made an ER visit to the vet. I had found one that is open 24/7 and that also does more blood transfusions for cats so I wanted to take Buttercup over there especially since she didn't eat much today and I was getting very worried. We went in about 6:30 and finally got in to see the vet at about 8:30 or so. The clinic was actually pretty busy. This new vet is much better than the others she has seen. He examined her very closely and did a very good eye exam with her. He suggested some x-rays to see if she indeed did have a mass in her abdomen as well as some other blood tests and a test of her blood pressure. When he examined her eyes he did say that he say some hemorrhaging in the back of her eyes which could be from high blood pressure among other things. He did say that she was still able to see some because she did track his finger and her eyes did dilate. We had to leave her at the clinic for a few hours since the tests were going to take a long time and we needed to get home to Mac. We finally went back to the clinic about 1:30 in the morning. The news wasn't all that good. His prognosis is similar to the first vet. All of her other systems and organ functions did check out pretty well, so the culprit to her being sick is definitely her feline leukemia. He is sending off the blood to a special lab to see if they can tell exactly what kind of leukemia she has. He said though that she probably still wouldn't be a candidate for any kind of chemotherapy since she is already so sick. Her red blood count is now down to 6. We discussed a blood transfusion. Dr. Riddle gave us much more pros and cons of doing a blood transfusion. I'm still not sure if it is the right thing to do given that she might get an infection. What we are going to try first is a new medication to stimulate her appetite even more. She'll take this new medication in addition to the predisone and B12 shots. So far this new medication seems to be helping quite a bit. She has been alot more alert since Friday and eating and drinking alot more. I am still hopeful that maybe she'll gain just a bit more weight that doing a blood transfusion will be more beneficial. The other reason to send off her blood samples to the specialist is to see for sure if her bone marrow is definitely not regenerating. If it is even just a bit then we will do the blood transfusion. If it's not then there really is not point in doing the blood transfusion.