Need some advice as to what may have happened

cassiiie

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My kitten passed away this morning, and it's been troubling me not knowing what could have happened, or if i could have done anything to avoid his death.

From what his previous owner told me, he (my kitten) had been born on the 20th of november. She had like 4 or 5 different cats who had given birth around the same date, but my cat belonged to the youngest litter. They were all together in a room and all the cats nursed all the kittens. But Bilbo (my cat) was the smallest one in the litter, and wouldnt get to eat as much as the rest, so when he got his teeth, her owner started giving her minced meat. 

This woman gave my cat to my aunt on the 24th of december and she took care of him for me before i could get my house ready for the cat. He was seriously underweight, but we figured that with food and plenty of love, he'd bounce back in no time.

I got him home on the 2nd of january. I have a scale at home and he was weighing 433 grams, so he was still underweight. I gave him so whiskas for kittens and he drank water. The next day i took him to the vet for a checkup, and she started him up on the deworming process. For 3 days straight i gave him the deworming liquid and did not notice any worms or anything weird on his stool. For the next couple of days, he started putting on weight, like 10 grams each day. Once he finished the whiskas for kittens, my vet had suggested i gave him purina excellence for kittens so he'd put on weight. After i changed his food, the first day he ate his share of the day, but then he slowly and gradually  stopped eating as much. I consulted a vet about baby food, and if it was safe to feed him that, and she told me it was ok, so i complemented his diet with that. He reached 480 grams with the baby food and the dry food i was giving him. After that, it was all downhill.

He started to seem more and more lethargic each day, and wouldnt even play. I'd have to wake him up to see if he wanted to eat or use the litterbox. I couldnt take him to the vet because my vet was out on holidays and it just didnt feel safe to take him someplace else (in hindsight, i should have taken it someplace else). 

Until yesterday. We all noticed he was more lethargic than ever, and we noticed he was hotter than usual, but until that moment we didnt know how to know if a cat has a fever or not. He ate a couple of times, although not much and used his litter. Later at night, i noticed he hadnt eaten that much, and my mom had weighted him and told me he was weighing 388 grams, so i prepared a bit of the baby food and gave him that with a syringe on his mouth. 

We kept an eye on him and he was just acting weird and would seem more tired than usual. We let him use the litter and noticed his hind legs were weak because he had trouble getting on the litter box, and afterwards he tried to climb to his bed that's on a little table next to a window and he couldnt reach it. My mom then held him up and he started giving him water with the syringe on his mouth so he wouldnt dehydrate because he wasnt drinking it on his own. Suddenly she notices his body became really stiff, and his legs were like sticking out. I rushed and instinctibly open his mouth and i see his tongue all rolled up. I unrolled it and he kinda relaxed.We also noticed he had a dark spot in his belly, right underneath his intestines (he was so skinny that we could see his intestines). We tried to get him on the floor so he'd stand up, but he inmediatly fell. His legs were not working. We rushed him over to an emergency vet and he touched him and said he looked as if he had gastroenteritis. Gave him an antibiotic, some kind of protector for his kidney and something that would prevent him from vomiting. He questioned us about if we had any sort of poison in our house and we told him not. The only thing he'd done that i had seen was drink the water that leaks from our AC unit. Other than that, we dont have poisons in our house, we dont use room deodorants or even use bleach for the floors. The vet didnt gave much hope.

We took him home, and we started giving him water every 15 min so he wouldnt dehydrate and kept an eye on him for the entire night. His pupils were fully dilated and wouldnt react to light. He look was foggy and just not there, and we werent entirely sure if he could see at all. Until 4:30 am, i kept on giving him water until he stiffen up again and meowed really loud, he'd push his legs forward and his head backwards for some reason. At the moment, i didnt notice it, but he was having seizures. We thought he just wanted to stand up, so whenever than would happen, we'd try to get him to pee. He hadnt pee since i dont know when actually. He still had that black spot on his belly. After that, i checked his eyes again and it slowly reacted to light, but they still looked foggy and lost. He had more seizures, always pushing his head backwards. We got him to the litter and he defecated and after than happened, he seemed more calm. Maybe then he had a seizure per hour, but he was still breathing calmly.

He still hadnt peed. We were waiting till 9 am so we'd be able to take him to a clinic. Around 8am, he was just lying there, calmly and breathing. His look seemed more lost than before but his pupils still reacted to light. Maybe he was tired...he hadnt slept in almost 9 hours. And then, at 8:45 he made this sort of gargling sound and stopped breathing. We opened his mouth and his tongue was rolled up, we unrolled it and tried to give him mouth to mouth but his lips were already white. He suddenly stiffen up all of the sudden and then he relaxed. And that was it. 

I dont know if he ate anything toxic, or if he was carrying some sort of disease, or if he had renal failure. My vet is still out on holidays and i cant go and ask her yet. I really hope he's better now and that he can forgive me for not being able to nurse him back to full health. I stayed up all night by his side, and i hope that even though we dont know if he could see, that he could at least hear us and feel our gentle strokes to his head. I feel so guilty and i dont think i can recover from this. i'm sure going to miss him a lot. 
 

laralove

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Hi Cassiiie. Welcome to TCS. I'm so sorry for your loss. 

The thing that jumps out for me is with your third sentence. Did you get him from a kitty mill?
 
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cassiiie

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No. Actually I got him from a friend of my aunt's. She is a vet and lives in a farm-like place, from what i've heard. I've never seen her house, nor i've seen where she kept the kittens. Those cats are probably cats she picked up from the street and i wouldnt know the reason why she didnt neuter them. 

In hindsight, she made a lot of mistakes with the kitten. Like giving him away at such a young age, or giving him meat before he was a month old. If the kitten wasnt lactating, she should have given him kitten formula, maybe it would have made a difference or not.

Maybe he was already born with a genetic defect, urinary track problems or something...i honestly dont know. But i should have paid more attention to the fact that he was seriously underweight instead of just waiting for slow improvement. 

I feel as ill be asking myself that question for a long time. I cant understand what happened.
 

laralove

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I'm sorry you're having to deal with this.


Kitty mill or not, five or six cats giving birth around the same time... that's a lot of cats and kittens to keep up with and take care of. That's a big reason why cats from mills tend to have health problems. There's just too much going on and appropriate care isn't taken. Same seems to apply here. You're right to note that many mistakes were made during this kitten's first weeks. I think you did everything you could. It seems like this kitten just got off to a bad start. Or, like you said, there may have been a medical issue he was born with, or some unfortunate combination of factors. 
 

oneandahalfcats

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No. Actually I got him from a friend of my aunt's. She is a vet and lives in a farm-like place, from what i've heard. I've never seen her house, nor i've seen where she kept the kittens. Those cats are probably cats she picked up from the street and i wouldnt know the reason why she didnt neuter them. 

In hindsight, she made a lot of mistakes with the kitten. Like giving him away at such a young age, or giving him meat before he was a month old. If the kitten wasnt lactating, she should have given him kitten formula, maybe it would have made a difference or not.

Maybe he was already born with a genetic defect, urinary track problems or something...i honestly dont know. But i should have paid more attention to the fact that he was seriously underweight instead of just waiting for slow improvement. 

I feel as ill be asking myself that question for a long time. I cant understand what happened.
I am very sorry for your loss. Its heart-breaking to lose pets, but particularly young ones with so much life left to have lived. Please don't beat yourself up about this. From what you have described you sound like a very caring individual who tried to do what she could under difficult circumstances. As you and Lara Love have both suggested, this kitty got off to a bad start. Not being sufficiently nursed from the mother cat puts kittens in a precarious situation from the start as they lose out on crucial immune building nutrients. Introducing solid food instead of a kitten formula was also a bad and unfortunate decision taken. This vet certainly should have known better. The other suggestions you have made are also some possibilities.

In time you will come to terms with this and hopefully can try again. I wish you all the best.
 
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