Gibson Medical Update

It seems our poor boy is currently in medical limbo at the moment. After recovering remarkably well from running into a moving vehicle, Gibson stopped eating and spiked a fever in his foster home. Along with a list of other things, including an enlarged heart (which is "normal" again now), Gibby was diagnosed with non-regenerative anemia - basically his red blood cells weren't "resupplying" themselves. Once we were told of the anemia, we were advised that the best place to go would be the University of Penn and that the best option as far as testing to find us answers would be a bone marrow test.

Up until this point, Gibby was being cared for the wonderful staff at the facility his rescuer Rick had taken him to when Gibson ran into Rick's car. We decided to seek a second opinion of our trusted Dr. John at Tri-County Veterinary Hospital.

This type of anemia would be classic for Feline Leukemia, however he has now officially tested negative for that twice now. Yes! We had him re-tested just in case. So, our only other theories were pretty poor - that of all the cats to run into kind hearted Rick's car, it was a terminally ill kitten whose life could only be prolonged with frequent blood transfusions, a painful procedure and only a temporary fix.

However, after seeing Dr. John we are now being cautiously optimistic about Gibby's condition.

Dr. John has a theory that Gibby had so much happen to his body at once when he smacked into Rick's car door that his red blood cells were a minor problem that fell to the bottom of his body's 'priority list' of things that needed to be recovered.

Right now, Gibby's temperature continues to remain fairly normal and he's eating - he's even put on weight! In a couple weeks, Gibby will be returning to our wonderful Dr. John for more blood work to see how his red blood cell count it.

His foster mom, Joyce, recently wrote: "I think Gibby is missing Petey (his neurological foster buddy who recently passed away; pictured curled up with Gibby in a cat bed), he wouldn't leave me alone while I was drying my hair: biting my feet, running in circles, attacking my legs, etc. So I threw a towel over him to see how long it took for him to come out. The result? ... let's just say Gibby would still be under the towel if I didn't remove it. Of course, as soon as I did, he was right back at attacking my feet. What a character!"

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