Here are the two of them: Schrödinger past Calisi virus, and Gomez still recovering from FIP. Sometimes it's love, and sometimes... not so much. They're such good kitties.
About 10 days ago, Gomez woke up and couldn't fully use her back legs.
She was/is able to use the litter box, and jump up on the bed. But when she tries to walk her hind legs collapse.
We are under the care of a specialist who is hoping this is FIP, which is curable. But she's been on the FIP med for a week with no improvement. Of course, the first thing we did is x-rays, and they were fine. So probably something involving the spinal cord. She also got every blood test known to cats. The only one that was notable was the one for FIP.
Before this happened our primary vet put her on itraconazole for ringworm because her best buddy had it. Her ringworm test was negative. I think she got toxicity from the drug. The cause doesn't matter now: the cure is all I care about.
We're seeing the speciali today.
The fur on Gomez's front legs is patchy.
Before we got Gomez a year ago, an epidemic of ringworm had spread through the cattery. After some weeks of treatment, the breeder swore Gomez didn't have ringworm and it was safe to bring her home. Her fur was shiny and gorgeous, no bare spots.
But then there are spores.
All of us got ringworm except for Gomez. My poor husband kept getting spot after spot. Our neighbor got it and we don't know how (fortunately we're still friends). Everybody got topical miconozole and everybody was clear after 12 weeks. End of story, right?
So what is this patchy s#t?
Shortly after we got Schrödinger, he developed a cough with sneezing and gurgly junky-sounding breathing. He was eating, pooping, and peeing normally, but was clearly sick. I'm a human health care provider, not a vet tech, so I recognized the symptoms of trouble but didn't know what to do.
The breeder swore Schrodie hadn't gotten his illness from her home. She said it's common for cats to get mycoplasma, and she was sure that's what he had, so he should get 40 days of Doxycycline.
After a 10 day course of doxy, we went to a vet who did a PCR. He said he didn't see mycoplasma, but he did see Calisi virus. The breeder informed me that the vet hadn't given him enough doxy, and I also needed to give him honey. Vets don't know what they're talking about. So we trusted the breeder, asked for more doxy, the vet acquiesced, and another 10 days went by. He didn't get better, he sounded worse.
I decided maybe the breeder was wrong, her mistrust of all Western medicine might be a problem. I took Schrödinger to a cat ENT specialist who did a rhinoscopy. The breeder said the rhinoscopy would kill him.
The problem was Calisi virus along with inflation and a large collection of immune cells. He actually had bumps on his nasopharynx full of lymphocytes and plasmacytes, that's how much his immune system was reacting. But it needed help.
The vet prescribed Bova EIDD-1931, an anitival. From what I can tell, it's a monoclonal antibody. I love those things because they have revolutionized treatment of cancer and a lot of autoimmune diseases.*
The breeder said the treatment was wrong, Schrodie should get gentamicin and cerenea. I pointed out that viruses DO NOT RESPOND to antibiotics.
It's been 2 weeks on the EIDD-1931. Schrödinger is 80% better: breathing is clear most of the time, he doesn't cough anymore, and he sneezes only occasionally... which is nice because when he sneezes, everything around him gets showered with snot. He refuses to use tissues.
We have several more weeks to go on this medicine. It's very expensive. It's very worth it.
*When you see commercials for a drug on TV, you can tell if it's a monoclonal antibody: the chemical/non-generic name will end in mab.