When I gave Blaze his feeding this afternoon, he went into serious respiratory distress. Meaning he was essentially suffocating. We rushed him to the vet's office (thankfully open until 1 and this was at 12) and they put him on oxygen, took X-rays, and did bloodwork. After the results of the bloodwork, we decided the best thing was to let him go, so he was
put down at 3:30 this afternoon.
The results of the bloodwork? His red blood count, which is supposed to be in somewhere like the 40-60 count range (I think that's right?) was at 10%. Seriously, seriously low. White count was low. Another blood count (I forget which) was seriously, seriously low. Plateletts (sp?) were very, very low. Something that started with a B that is created by destroyed red
blood cells was through the roof -- the highest normal reading is .9 -- his was 5.9. She said that's what was making his urine yellow.
Basically, his body was destroying itself. Our options were to put him down, or do a blood transfusion and hope he made it through the weekend, but the vet felt that the transfusion wouldn't take and after a few days he'd be right back so low. In other readings, it showed that his body was destroying itself in other ways dealing with the intestines, and that he was essentially "melting down".
Upon discussing it, and asking Blaze what he wanted, we decided the best thing was to let him go. He'd already mentally "left" us anyway this afternoon before we got him to the vet's.
We still don't know exactly what made Blaze so sick, but again the most likely diagnosis is FIP, though there are some other parasites and infections that could have started the ball rolling. My bet is that he had a fungal/bacterial/parasitical infection that had him sick since January, but that the stress from that infection finally got to be too much for his body and it triggered the dormant FIP. That's just my guess, but the vet
said that's a very possible diagnosis.
On Monday, I'll be picking up the plaster paw-prints this particular clinic makes for all their patients that are lost. It's a nice little memento, along with a lock of his fur.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
