Bailey's Story
by Belinda
Bailey was my FeLV+ furbaby, he was positive when I found him at 5 months of age in 1995. He was very healthy until 2005 when he started to have problems with his mouth and started losing weight, we ended up pulling his teeth, almost all of them and he was much better. He did well until about December of 2006 when he stopped eating, just stopped.
His exam, bloodwork and xrays showed he was very anemic so I started him on epogen and we did a bone marrow aspirate since he was FeLV+ and tested negative multiple times for hemobartonella. He was getting prednisolone and iron as well as the epogen. When he started the epo, his HCT had gone from 20% to 18% to 15% by the time we got him started on it. Within 6 weeks his HCT was back to 40%, a quicker rise than really wanted but definitely better than continuing to go down. His bone marrow aspirate show myplastic (sp?) pre cancerous cells. So we were pretty sure there was cancer somewhere but couldn't find it.
He also got a feeding tube because he was not eating and syringe feeding was torture for both of us. He always seemed uncomfortable after he got fed and I asked my vet if he could possibly have pancreatitis, he also had continuous diarrhea for almost the whole 6 months.
In May he spiraled downhill, his BP was very low 88, his temp was falling and it was obvious something was winning the battle. We couldn't find the cancer we suspected and my vet was not comfortable treating for a cancer we were sure he had but no idea where or what kind. His HCT was stable at 33% but everything else was failing, even with getting regular food, he was losing muscle mass and weight. I took him in on May 6th, 5 days after he turned 11 years old because he was in really bad shape, my vet said I had 3 options, she could do an exploratory to see if we could find the cancer that way, I could euthanize him or I could take him home and spent what little time we had together. I opted for the surgery but after a couple of hours of them trying to get him stable and get his falling body temp up it became obvious surgery was not going to happen. I asked my vet what she would do if he were hers, she said she would take him home and spend time with him ... as we were leaving to go home, it was evident he didn't have long.
We got home and had about an hour with him, he passed at home with his Mom & Dad and housemates with him.
I had a necropsy done and it turns out he had pancreatic cancer, so my instincts about his pancreas were right on ... always trust your gut, I had a feeling he had pancreatitis even though he didn't have the classic symptoms.
We lost our little Bailey May 6th, 2006, 5 days after he turned 11 years old.
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Washington, USA
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Bailey
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