September 19, 2017

White Dog shook her head. "You would not know there is a problem by looking at him. YoYoMa is up on his legs and walking around a few feet at a time on his own. His ulcer wounds are healing. He seems pretty darned chipper."

I nodded my agreement. But I had just gotten off of the phone with Dr. Julia.

In healing the open bleeding wounds YoYoMa developed we play a disquieting game of recognizing that his body is having a reaction to prednisone in his medical cocktail and are cutting it back but in doing so we disrupt the balance of his IMHA that we had established.

This afternoon's blood check revealed we healed the flesh but upset the anemia's balance. Yo's HCT count had dropped to 29 (from 38 last week) and his white blood cell count had risen to 33,000. We we not controlling either his body eating its own red blood cells or fighting infection in his compromised immune system.

We are now on red alert.

Reluctant to reintroduce the possibility of bleeding ulcers we are trying the leave the pred reduced while we increase his cyclosporine back up to once a day (instead of every other), and we are reinstating the proanthozone, an antioxident. 

We will retest on Thursday.

Meanwhile Dr. Julia is investigating other drug options with regard to their statistics and efficacy in potentially helping Yo's case. We do not want to go into the weekend without a plan firmly in place and without knowing how his numbers are trending. 

YoYoMa has an amazing Spirit in this battle and its uncertainty. His will to fight and his body's refusal to surrender are an inspiration to me but I hate that his struggle is so up and down. WD points out that maybe this journey was predetermined when he was named in his litter: "Yoyo Bounce Right Back."

So for now a close watch is being kept...and momma is checking gum color obsessively. The eye infection seems to be clearing up with just irrigation and drops as needed so Dr. Julia is going to let that ride and will check when he comes in on Thursday. 

The White Dog Army asks for all to concentrate on successfully stealthy Ninja Red Blood Cells to slip past and raise Yo's numbers...and for his WBC to win the war against the infectious things attacking him. Thanks as always.