I want to thank you for responding to my plea for help. Whether it was with a suggestion or just to let us know Socks was in your thoughts and prayers, that means a lot. Here's the findings: Socks has the vet totally stumped. His lungs are 90% full of 3 different types of bacteria, he has islands of large cells in his blood, but no sign of lymphoma at this moment. The cultures will be complete in a week. He's now on Clavamox 2x a day. His blood count is all right, he's slightly anemic. Here's what they did today, and what has transpired. To say that Dr. Thompson is stumped would be putting it mildly. (The following is direct from the reports we received today) Socks was presented to PUVTH on 10/20 for a transtracheal wash. His chest xrays yesterday revealed an opacity in his lungs suggestive of inflammation or possibly metastatic spread of tumor. We placed Socks under general anesthesia and successfully retrieved sampels (they did this 2x-second time he turned a bit blue) from his lungs for cytology and culture. Our initial interpretation of the cytology revealed large amounts of bacteria with inflammation. There was no evidence of any neoplastic process. They'll notify me of the results of the culture as soon as the results are available. I'm to give him 1/4ml of Clavamox 2x a day and they may need to change the antiobiotic pending the results of his culture. We have to observe him for any difficulty in breathing, watch for discoloration of his gums, increase in his chest movements, excitability or breathing through his mouth. Diagnostic finding: Chest radiographs revealed a diffuse opacity to the lungs. Cardiac silhoutte was difficult to visualize. Blood glucose was low at 62 mg/dl. There was evidence of of anemai and hyperglobulinemia. Heart sounds were not easily auscultable on physical examination. All else was WNL. Treatment/Procedures/Follow-up care: Transtracheal was performed under general anesthesia using Sevoflurane. Cytology & Culture were submitted for evaluation. Description/interpretation: Transtracheal wash-minimal neutrophilic inflammation with marked mixed bacterial contamination (probable oral cavity: 1. Poor diagnostic quality; 2) low total nucleated cell count; 3) mixture of epthelial cells (squamous and respiratory) and mixed inflammatory cell types (primarily mature nondegenerate neutrophils); 4) many extracellular mixed bacterial forms (motly rod shaped bacteria)' 5) no obvious intracellular organisms; 6)no obvious malignant neoplstic cell population (this is all from the Vet Clin Pathology Lab at Purdue). I'll keep you posted on what the cultures tell us this coming week. Thanks for being there for us! Rebecca [Posted in FML issue 3212]