Scout’s emergency transfusion was successful, it not only saved her life but left her strong enough that they let us bring her home for the night, as she’ll be under much less stress here. Since we still don’t know the cause of her anemia, we don’t know how long the good effects of the transfusion will last, but we’ll evaluate her tomorrow morning and afternoon and bring her back in if she regresses.
The x-rays came back looking good, there were no obvious signs of cancer or any metal objects that might have caused internal bleeding. They took a test from her spleen this afternoon as it’s swollen a bit, it isn’t unusual with her level of anemia but they want to rule out cancer in the spleen itself. We’ll get those results back tomorrow. Depending on those results, and how she’s doing tomorrow, they may run another test to evaluate the quality of the red blood cells her bone marrow is producing (thankfully we do know it is producing them, a condition known as regenerative anemia — she’s generating red blood cells but her body is destroying them).
In the meantime she is getting medicine for two potential causes of anemia, infection and an auto-immune disorder. I’m hoping the cause is one of these two, as they are treatable to at least some degree. The infection possibility is unlikely but the easiest to treat. The auto-immune disorder would require her to take steroids for the rest of her life, ruining her shot at playing ball in the big leagues, not to mention putting her more at risk of some other diseases, but I’ll take it.
We’ve got her isolated in our bedroom for the time being to minimize her stress, I’m staying with her while my wife is sleeping downstairs with the other pets. We kept her here when she first fell ill and it helped calm her down substantially. She’s been eating and moving around nicely since we brought her home, a far cry from where we were a couple of days ago, and especially this morning.
At the moment she’s curled up on my legs, purring, about to fall asleep, her black-and-white fur gently rising and falling as she breathes. I took this picture of her fur a few days ago, I didn’t take any tonight to avoid adding stress to what has already been an exhausting day for her (and us).
It sure is good to have her home, and in good spirits. Here’s hoping she feels the same in the morning.
Boolie 