Saving Tyrion Lannister - Friday

The ride continues.

Tyrion had a *really* good day today.  As in, probably the best he's had since he's gotten to U Penn.  He ate half of two meals (by far the most he's eaten in a day and that was just up until around 4pm), was up walking around in his cage, using his litter box and even got a little bath (which he politely protested. His primary veterinarian is off for two days over the weekend and the is on again for FOUR STRAIGHT WEEKS, but still took the time to send us a couple of pictures and an absolutely adorable video of this after his bath, out walking around outside of his little home and hiding.  I'm still smiling.

Tyrion received dialysis today and hopefully will not need it until Monday.  He is completely out of the oxygen cage (yay!) and his hematocrit (the red cells) are holding, but still not anywhere close to normal (most likely due to his poor kidney function).  The bleeding in his cathetersite remains non-existent for today, but he is still loosing some blood in his urine.  We also learned today that he has been bumped up on the transplant priority list to #2.  Meaning, our sunny day scenario of him receiving a transplant the week of the actual Memorial Day holiday would be his week, granted he matches and the final infectious disease tests come back negative (so far, so good).  On the flip side, his potassium seemed to rise quite quickly, especially for being off of dialysis only 36 hours.  He can have dialysis again if he needs it, but we want to try and minimize the occurrences to three times a week to keep the number of blood transfusions low as well.  Each time he receives dialysis, he gets another transfusion, making his chances of matching another cat for a kidney possibly more difficult.

We *really* need him to stay well over the weekend.  I'd love to see him have two or three great days in a row.  If he stays well over the weekend through Monday, he will finally be transferred out out of the ICU.  It's also Louis' birthday Sunday.  He really needs a good day that day!  We are counting on him.

So that's it for now...I'm off to get a few short hours of sleep.  I've got a 30 miler to rock out in the morning!