Hi Carol,

It's an extremely rare form of leukaemia.

We noticed Coffee had been a little off balance occasionally, then one night
my girlfriend found her circling my office dragging her feet and tail
between her legs.

She was taken straight to our vets (middle of the night but fortunately they
are 24 hour), they ran tests and found a really high red blood cell count;
cats should be around 30% but Coffee was up over 70%, so her blood was like
treacle, her heart couldn't pump it round properly, and not enough oxygen
was getting to her brain (causing the circling and dragging feet).

The vet put her on a saline drip overnight to try and stabilise her blood,
then in the morning he took some blood out of her and put saline back in,
briefly her level stabilised and she perked up, but as the day went on the
red blood cells climbed up again, by evening she had started having
seizures, one every 10 minutes, the vets called us and said our only option
was to take her to a specialist in Cambridge (some 100 miles away) otherwise
she would die very soon.

The vets did the blood/saline swop again to get her levels down for the
stressful journey; fortunately my friend drove girlfriend and Coffee to
Cambridge where she was rushed into intensive care; drips in both arms and
going into her jugular trying to get her levels under control.

The hospital just monitored her at first, repeating blood/saline swaps and
keeping the drips going to try and stabilise her, eventually they had her
blood holding around 50% and started tests to work out what was wrong; our
vets tested for leukaemia and x-rayed for obvious tumours but found nothing.
The specialist hospital began ultrasound investigation of her organs (having
to shave huge lumps out of her beautiful coat) to look for a small tumour
and began more detailed blood tests.

Coffee held up and after a couple of days they were pretty sure it was
polycythemia; it's rare, maybe one case a year in the UK, it works like
leukaemia but is relatively passive, affecting the bone marrow and forcing
it to pump out red blood cells, she will have to take drugs for the rest of
her life to control it and it has obviously shortened her life span.

What I'm really worried about is quality of life, she is back with us now
and obviously a little spaced out from all the travelling and stress and
drugs, I just wonder though how the drugs will affect her, we have to wear
gloves to administer them because they're so toxic, the vet described them
as "chemotherapy in a pill". She has lost a lot of weight but is eating like
crazy now she's back which we're really happy to see.

We have a check up appointment (her blood levels will have to be monitored
regularly) where we plan to ask for more information now we're thinking more
clearly, but I had really hoped to find someone who has dealt with the
disease in a cat, so if anyone thinks of anyone, or perhaps knows of
research, alternative medicines, improved diets etc. etc., anything that can
help our little darling, it will be very gratefully received.

There's a moral here as well for anyone without insurance; just a
consultation at the specialists was ?1500 (nearly $3000), without it she
would be dead by now, please insure your cats if you love them as much as we
love ours!

Steve