Sorry for the very late reply to this. A lot has been going on recently.

Sammy does NOT have that stupid disease! Nor has he been coughing since I had last posted. He just has his luxating patella and degenerative joint disease (DJD). We were told that we could take him to a college nearby to have some surgical options performed on him, but it may not change how he now walks. This is due to luxating patellas being rare in cats so there isn't much in the way of surgery done for them. If we happened to decide to let them work on him, he would have a greater chance of possibly injuring himself due to cats not really being crate-able during recovery.

However there is some confusion as to how this all happened. The lab workers felt that this had been due to an injury. If this is true, then it would have had to have occurred before we met Sam since he was fine the day before he started limping. The vets feel as though it was not due to an injury. The vet that looked at Sammy said he was really happy that he was going to be ok because he was really afraid he was going to have to lose his leg.

Right now, the plan from here on out is to get him some anti inflammatory meds and possibly some prescription food for the DJD. The two vets at the practice are going to talk it over and see what they feel is best. We just need to make sure he's still wanting to explore, play, eat, etc. Otherwise he might be in some real pain. If he starts isolating himself a lot or getting aggressive we'll have to take him to get checked out. We're still awaiting a call to see what course of action they are deciding to take.

The only sad news to report is that the vet who looked at Sam has moved. : (

With all that being said, I want to thank everyone who posted here for keeping me calm in this difficult time. I wish you and your tripawds the best!