I'd posted this question within another thread (about someone who'd had their kitty spayed), but thought maybe I'd start a new thread, to hopefully increase the chances of someone being able to shed some light.
Seems pretty common that when a cat has surgery, that day or the day after, their sides have that "hollowed out" look.......sort of closer to the back leg area.
I never thought too much about it, because it always went away usually by the 2nd day post-op.
I then noticed it somewhat with my very old CRF kitty BeeJoo....but with her, I attributed (albeit perhaps wrongly?) to decreased muscle mass due to the CRF and her being so old.
But with my dear angel kitty Tigger (my very first cat, who I sad had to have put down on Dec 10th), I started noticing this with her within the 2-3 weeks prior to her having to be put down. Now she did have CRF, too....so maybe it was just due to that (she was 17 yrs old).....but I wonder now if it wasn't maybe something else as well? She was about 7.8 lbs at the end (she'd maintained a weight of about 8.5 lbs for a couple of years...........for most of her years prior to this, she was about 11.5-12.5 lbs).
I'm not 100% positive what made her feel so awful in the end; I suspect for the most part that it was her CRF but in my gut I suspect something else was amiss, too. She seemed to be in pain and CRF isn't really going to cause pain, per se.
2 yrs prior, when i'd first noticed weight loss, I took her to Vet, had abdominal ultrasound done (as lab work showed nothing but elevated Creat and BUN which had been the case for 2-3 yrs). Vet saw substantial thickening to length of bladder. Had another ultrasound done and I'd arranged for a Vet Radiologist to review same. He said while things looked thickened he couldn't really tell much. I guess we suspected it could have been Transitional Cell Carcinoma, or at least my Vet did. My gut said that she'd had no issues with urination, how did we know her bladder wasn't always like this? I did know that if it was TCC, she wouldn't have that long, it was an aggressive type of cancer. If this was the case, due to the extent of her bladder being thickened, surgical removal wasn't even an option and I wouldn't have put her through chemo due to her age and CRF. 2 years later, still alive. Had even gained some weight. I suspect if it had been TCC, she'd have been gone very quickly.
Anyway.....curious about that hollowed look she had.
She was spending her days hiding out (sign of cat in pain), didn't want to eat (even her most favorite things, in the last week), was very owly with other cats......so I felt I had to let her go, couldn't stand to see her suffer. $400 worth of bloodwork 3 weeks prior showed elevated BUN and Creat and very low platelets, super low; Vet had no idea why and didn't seem to care much. her potassium was good (had previously been low in August), hematocrit good, everything else good. Guess it could have been Lymphoma, too. I had to let her go, she was my first cat and she and I had a very very strong bond; I couldn't stand to let her suffer one day, I owed her more than that
Seems pretty common that when a cat has surgery, that day or the day after, their sides have that "hollowed out" look.......sort of closer to the back leg area.
I never thought too much about it, because it always went away usually by the 2nd day post-op.
I then noticed it somewhat with my very old CRF kitty BeeJoo....but with her, I attributed (albeit perhaps wrongly?) to decreased muscle mass due to the CRF and her being so old.
But with my dear angel kitty Tigger (my very first cat, who I sad had to have put down on Dec 10th), I started noticing this with her within the 2-3 weeks prior to her having to be put down. Now she did have CRF, too....so maybe it was just due to that (she was 17 yrs old).....but I wonder now if it wasn't maybe something else as well? She was about 7.8 lbs at the end (she'd maintained a weight of about 8.5 lbs for a couple of years...........for most of her years prior to this, she was about 11.5-12.5 lbs).
I'm not 100% positive what made her feel so awful in the end; I suspect for the most part that it was her CRF but in my gut I suspect something else was amiss, too. She seemed to be in pain and CRF isn't really going to cause pain, per se.
2 yrs prior, when i'd first noticed weight loss, I took her to Vet, had abdominal ultrasound done (as lab work showed nothing but elevated Creat and BUN which had been the case for 2-3 yrs). Vet saw substantial thickening to length of bladder. Had another ultrasound done and I'd arranged for a Vet Radiologist to review same. He said while things looked thickened he couldn't really tell much. I guess we suspected it could have been Transitional Cell Carcinoma, or at least my Vet did. My gut said that she'd had no issues with urination, how did we know her bladder wasn't always like this? I did know that if it was TCC, she wouldn't have that long, it was an aggressive type of cancer. If this was the case, due to the extent of her bladder being thickened, surgical removal wasn't even an option and I wouldn't have put her through chemo due to her age and CRF. 2 years later, still alive. Had even gained some weight. I suspect if it had been TCC, she'd have been gone very quickly.
Anyway.....curious about that hollowed look she had.
She was spending her days hiding out (sign of cat in pain), didn't want to eat (even her most favorite things, in the last week), was very owly with other cats......so I felt I had to let her go, couldn't stand to see her suffer. $400 worth of bloodwork 3 weeks prior showed elevated BUN and Creat and very low platelets, super low; Vet had no idea why and didn't seem to care much. her potassium was good (had previously been low in August), hematocrit good, everything else good. Guess it could have been Lymphoma, too. I had to let her go, she was my first cat and she and I had a very very strong bond; I couldn't stand to let her suffer one day, I owed her more than that
