Greetings Yardley Sponsors!

I hope you are all doing well. The weather has been warmer, so we have been enjoying some open windows with fresh air. Yardley is not one to hang out in front of windows (we have tried!) but I assume she still enjoys fresh air flowing into the house.

Things are status quo here with Yardley, which is good news!

Two years ago, when Yardley first became very sick, she was diagnosed with EPI and Multiple Myeloma. We treated her with chemo for the Multiple Myeloma for a year-and-a-half. We stopped the chemo in the fall and she is still doing just fine.

EPI stands for Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency. This means the part of the pancreas that makes the enzymes needed for digestion is not working properly. The cat then cannot digest their food and cannot get nutrients. They have diarrhea and cannot keep on weight. To treat, you add pancreatic enzymes to their food. A blood test is used to diagnose EPI. Yardley’s levels were very low, so she was easy to diagnose with EPI.

When Yardley was first sick and diagnosed with EPI and Multiple Myeloma, we started treating her for both and she got better! While she is not on the chemo for the Multiple Myeloma, she is still on the pancreatic enzymes for the EPI. I add it to her wet food twice a day. The thing is, she doesn’t always eat all of her wet food. She also eats dry food and my other cats’ food. This made me question if she truly has EPI. Even with not always eating her food with enzymes, she never has diarrhea. With my previous two animals with EPI, even if they ate all of their food with enzymes, they still had diarrhea every so often. Yardley never has diarrhea.

So here I am, complaining about Yardley not having diarrhea! We are going to reach out to a specialist and see if there’s any chance that anything else besides EPI could cause that low number in her bloodwork.

Yardley herself is doing fine:  eating whatever she pleases and hanging out wherever she pleases.  She reluctantly goes back to her room every night. She likes to grumble at us but she knows what she’s supposed to do.

Thanks again for sponsoring this sweet girl with her unconventional medical issues!

Your correspondent,
Jess