06/06/2023

HCT 13.8%, Weight 12.9lbs 

After noticing that Jasper had slowed down on eating, we got him an appointment with at the animal hospital, where he tested positive for incurable Feline Leukemia. He was diagnosed with progressive virus, meaning that it had hijacked his DNA and was programming it to manufacture more virus. 

He also had severe "Non-regenerative anemia" meaning that his bone marrow was compromised and that he could no longer make enough red blood cells to sustain life. As his present red blood cells aged out he would become weaker and weaker until his blood could no longer deliver oxygen to his cells. Due to his imminent (horrible) death, we were advised to euthanize him on the spot. 

Hematocrit (HCT) is the measurement for how well his blood was working. Healthy cats fall within the range of 30.3% - 52.3%. Survival level is around 20%, but the cat will be weak and lethargic. Jasper was at 13.8%.

Jasper is AJ's unofficial support animal and we could not fathom losing him in this way; so he came home while we tried to figure out what to do. Jasper looked at us with those big, beautiful eyes and said that he wanted to fight. We dove into the social media groups and literature; looking for any shred of hope that he could beat this.

I stayed up, reading, most of that night, and found a couple of glimmers of hope, in the form of two anti-virals which some people had gotten success with. I ordered a very expensive treatment called RetroMAD1, from Singapore. The next morning, we spoke to another veterinarian at our animal hospital and inquired about the other drug, a groundbreaking treatment called TCyte that had been shown to clear the virus. She suggested that Jasper needed a blood transfusion and that the specialty emergency hospital in Jacksonville was listed as having TCyte. By that afternoon, Jasper had gotten worse and we made the decision to give it our all in order to save him.