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- Jun 8, 2008
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@missy, I'm just getting on this thread tonight - I'm amazed at the love, dedication, and stamina that you and Greg have shown in the face of this. I wish I could help somehow. All I know to do is to say, as a fellow animal lover, that the two of you inspire me and give me hope. You are two incredible people, and any beings that cross paths with you in life are very blessed indeed.
That is very kind of you to say @OboeGal. Thank you for your generous comments and for taking the time to read through this thread and offer encouragement. I know most PSers would do the same for their furry kids as would most animal lovers. They are our family. We are just hoping and praying we can get them well. I cannot think about the alternative. It has been a devastating year for us and our furbabies and if I think about it too much it overwhelms me so we are just going to continue doing what we need to do and hoping for the best. We love our babies as we love all our family members and honestly maybe we love our furbabies a little (lot) bit more. LOL. What can I say? Our furry kids are sweet and good with pure hearts. They deserve so much better than this and hoping this is but a blip on their radar and that they can go on and live happy healthy lives after RW.
im sitting her woundering how things are in the garden state today .... ?
have fingers crossed all is going well
Hi Daisy, well yesterday went ok with the increased concentration of Lime Dip though the smell is much stronger and they were sort of squinting their eyes a bit last night which worried me because of Oliver's eye history of a severe corneal herpetic eye ulcer. He is prone to more outbreaks so we don't want to initiate another eye problem. We give him a special oil every day to help keep his eyes healthy but all this stress etc makes him more susceptible to eye issues so we are watching him closely. Keeping an eye on things... Pun intended.
The vet tech we spoke with when we came to pick them up said that they *think* Tommy is "blowing" his coat which means stress is causing him to lose lots of hair. They don't think (but cannot be sure) that all his hair loss is from ringworm. To that end I ordered Feliway diffusers and the spray. In the past we used that to no improvement but these are different cats and a different situation and I am hoping it can help. It is very stressful on the cats and Tommy is taking it the worst I think. He runs like crazy when we try to give him the Itrafungol every morning and it is heartbreaking. In fact he won't come for food in the AM anymore and he was the first one to run for food every morning until recently. 6 weeks of this is too much for them.
They have been through the proverbial ringer and it just kills me inside seeing them suffer and stress like this. We remain calm in front of them and speak soothingly to them and pet them the whole time we are administering meds but it isn't helping calm them at all. I don't blame them. I hate me too. It makes me sick how we are torturing them every single day multiple times per day. Yet what choice do we have? They can get well and they can go on to live a happy rest of their life. We cannot just give up on them.
Fred has areas that look irritated with no hair regrowth but his paws and ears and chin/throat are regrowing. But he has large areas on his belly that are hairless and raw and irritated so we have to watch those areas closely too. He also has a new area on his nose which was the original site of infection for Fred but Greg tells me not to panic because a similar thing happened to Oliver as an area got better a new one sort of popped up. But we are 6 weeks into it so that is worrisome especially because Fred is not getting the Itrafungol. But we have to be patient and just keep on doing everything we can.
Bobby's newest area on his back is regrowing hair but I cannot tell as it is a pretty large and scaly area that looks pretty awful. Peeling like no tomorrow. His throat area has been regrowing hair for a few weeks now. The vet tech says he has a thinning area on one of his legs (I forget which and not even sure I heard the details because all I heard was new area and my mind went dark) but she said it was there last week too and she thinks that area might be regrowing hair but now I am unsure of exactly what she said and Greg isn't sure either. All we heard was leg hair thinning on Bobby.
Oliver is showing the best improvement and in fact she wasn't sure she saw anything on him anymore. But we have to continue treatment for at least a few more weeks on him. The thing is we also have to re-culture all of them when we think we are near a cure. And that culture takes 3-4 weeks to grow. The initial Oliver culture took 4 weeks to diagnose M Canis (RW) and we need 2 negative cultures for a cure. But that is crazy long so I want to get a PCR test which is another test that gives results in 3 days. But the vet's office won't do that test so I asked Elaine to please get that for me. As a regular person I cannot buy that test myself and my sister doesn't even know about that test so I have to rely on Elaine to get me the PCR tests and we can retest the cats when we think we are nearer a cure. If I had that now I would retest Oliver.
That is my update. Oh and we brought in a stool sample yesterday from Oliver because he has had parasites since we adopted him. We gave him 2 rounds of treatment for Coccidia (a total of 15 days of treatment for Coccidia) and two doses (3 weeks apart) of Drontal for Roundworm. Let's hope he is finally parasite free. If not I might just have a nervous breakdown because this kid has gotten a lot of anti parasitic medication. C'mon be gone you parasites and next we are getting RW out of our lives.
I wish I had better news. Yes Oliver is doing better but the other 3 seem to not be getting rid of this RW and it keeps showing up in different places. Thank you everyone for your good thoughts and well wishes and I appreciate every single post and comment shared more than words can express. We are just going to keep doing what we are doing and hopefully get RW out of our lives and hopefully sooner vs later. Today is 41 of RW gate he**.
You can see how yellow his hair looks. From last night. Poor sweetie.
They are all looking yellow from the Lime Dip with the exception of Tommy as he has no white hair on him so his hair color disguises the color of the Lime Dip but you can smell him. The smell doesn't bother me at all. I know (hope) it is working its magic to get them well.
Everyone ate when they got home last night after the Lime Dip so that was good. Poor Freddie. He looks so ragged. I pray he will get better. The new area on his nose is concerning. C'mon Fred honey fight this. We love you so much. Please fight this.