Beans Update - hopeful

Wow, today did not go how I thought it would go. Two Fridays ago, Beans went in for his transfusion and his PCV was 17. Last week at his checkup on Wednesday, his PCV had dropped a little to 15. I prepared myself for this medicine to not take effect. Beans has been hanging in there personality-wise, staying social with the other kitties and coming to get petted from Chad and me. He seemed to enjoy his little routines throughout the day. All of that, until the past 36 hours...he has vomited twice, started hiding this morning, and seemed to be uncomfortable on his hind legs (a new symptom).

I went to the vet worried and expecting horrible news. I was prepared for his PCV to be down to 10-12 and for us to have the discussion about putting Beans down. I expected the worst. What we got instead was different news...

Beans's PCV went up! Well, without getting overly excited, it went back up to 16-17, so it didn't go up all that much, but it is the first time in a month that it has gone up! Even Dr. Faught expected the number to go down. It was such a pleasant surprise!!! So, we wait another week to confirm that he is continuing to respond to the Chlorambucin. In the meantime, instead of going to extreme measures to determine the cause of the discomfort in his legs, we're going to give him some pain meds to see if the pain goes away on its own. If he still has the spine/leg pain after the meds, then we can talk. That will likely involve an MRI or CT scan (more expenses), so we need to know that his blood counts are going up and that he might beat this IMHA before we spend a bunch of extra money. If we were lottery winners or had a ton of money to throw around, I would have him start looking into the leg pain today just in case.

I'm excited about giving Beans his new drugs tonight. He also got a new anti-emetic to help with the vomiting. He seems to do best when he is on one that is working, so that combined with the pain meds should make for one calm and happy cat.

Oh my gosh I'm trying not to get my hopes up!