There's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is we finally know what's wrong with our cat.

The bad news is he has lymphoma.

I took him to his appointment at The Ohio State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital on Thursday, April 28. The ran tests, hydrated him, did an ultrasound then broke the bad news to us. We decided he deserved a chance to get better and we wanted our sweet, social kitty back, so we opted to move ahead with chemotherapy. He'd gotten to the point where he couldn't use his back legs at all and the only movement he did was to drag himself to, into, out of and from the litter box back under the guest bed. OSU kept him until Monday, May 2 and when we brought him home, he could use his back legs again, but not very well. He walked like a drunken sailor, plopping down every few steps, especially on hardwood floors. But he's improved a lot in the last two weeks and is almost back to normal.

In addition to the lymphoma, he also developed an ulcer in his eye while at the hospital. They said it was caused by a flare up of the herpes virus, which was probably due to the stress of being in the hospital. And the reason he has that virus is because he's FIV positive, which the feline version of HIV.

So add that all up and what do we have? A cat with cancer, herpes and AIDS. Poor baby kitty.

We've had to choke him with pills and give him eye drops every day since then. Thank goodness D and I have the system down now and are a lot better at it (the first night, it took us around twenty tries to get down five pills). And while the cat definitely doesn't like it, he's still a pretty laid back, easy patient, all cats considered.

Unfortunately, all of this treatment only puts him into remission, it doesn't cure the cancer. Cats and dogs with cancer aren't treated like humans are. Vets don't want the animals to become sick from the treatment, so they only give enough drugs for remission, not a cure. Expected remission time for our cat is only six to nine months, though, and second courses of chemotherapy are less successful than the first. So we know we're prolonging his life for only a short time. It's selfish of us, actually. We just want to hang out with him a little bit longer and we've vowed to enjoy every minute of it.

So in honor of our tough little kitty (and he's really getting little - he's down to 15 lbs from 21 last fall), here are a few recent pictures of him. The cuteness, it knows no bounds.