What it's NOT

Rumble continued to lose weight and after Spring Break I decided to take him back in.  From January to March, Rumble went from 11.6 pounds to 8.8 pounds.  That is a HUGE weight loss for a cat.  His fur was no longer black and rich.  When he moved you could see his skin underneath in some areas.  His bones were starting to stick out and it feels really weird to pet him and feel everything. 

His temp was 104 degrees, which is high for a cat.  According to our vet, his chest was clear and his abdominal palp showed no pain and no masses.  His blood/serum work did return a high globin count which our vet said, "he is in a fight against something; either a virus or leukemia."  Our vet wanted to rule out some infections so he took Rumble's blood and tested it for several things:  FeLV (feline leukemia virus) was negative, FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) was negative, and FIP (feline infectious peritonitis, which had to be shipped off to be tested) was also negative.  We also know that it is not worms, liver/kidney failure, or hyperthyroidism.  Our vet also noted that his back was sensitive so he gave him a steroid shot.  So we ruled out a few things that it was NOT but we still don't know what it is. 

Our next step was to take a look at his abdomen using an ultrasound.  Our vet said he could do the ultrasound but if he found anything, he would send us to someone for a further look so we decided to skip the cost of our vet doing the ultrasound and just go straight to the next guy to begin with.

I should have pushed harder for more tests back in January; I should have listened to myself more closely.