Sick cat and agressive littermate Nightmare

Our male cat started vomiting which lasted for 3 days after he ate anything. Always immediately wants to eat again. Otherwise seemed fine.  Here is where the nightmare begins. Our vet who comes to the house was on vacation so we took him to vet #1 who is on our at home vets " go to if I am away" list. He is a 4 year old pure bred Siberian. The vet checks him out and says he is full of poop. They said we will do an enema. I said ok figuring he's the doctor. Well a half hour later he comes out and says he has not gone yet and we are closing so we will just put some wee wee pads into carrier and you take him home. Cost 375.00. Of course I will never go back there. He is furry, so now liquid is running out of him on the ride home. We get here and he is filthy. Cannot poop, will not eat. His sister and litter mate who have never been apart since the were neutered/spayed as kittens was very loving to him and keep trying to get him to play etc. Very sweet. It took 4 days for this trauma to wear off and he was seemingly better and he ate and immediately threw up. So now we take him to emergency hospital. Looked it up, came highly recommended. Its supposedly the best place in Az, vets go there to do residency etc etc. So we figure we will get the help we need here. And they never close so we will have no repeat of  first incident. They check everything. Complete blood work, full labs, x-rays etc etc. Thought maybe he is blocked up somewhere. Food will not stay in this cat and poop will not come out. That's the issue. They want to keep him overnight. That was Sat. We go visit on Sun and they cannot find anything wrong and said he will poop when he eats. He will not eat at vet hospital because he is not happy there. They do an ultra sound to check for blockage. None found. They do not want to let him go until we have some kind of answer. They syringe feed him and he finally poops 3 am weds morn. We get a call all is well come get him. Diagnosis: maybe has an infection because of white blood cell count in urine and some kind of GI upset. The top vet there says sometimes we never know what causes this. Also could be allergic to his food. But he looks good, well hydrated and ready to go home. Total bill for all this: $2157.46! I have the invoice to prove it lol! Ok so thank God for care credit and away we go. Get home cat eats food he always has been because he hates the RX food from the vet. After a while.....he throws it up!  All this money spent and we are no better off. Our reg home vet is back in town and will come today.

Nightmare over right! WRONG! Now his female littermate/best friend hates him. The moment we got home she reared up and hissed and ran. We understood but he was only 3 days gone. Now I have a still not well cat, huge vet bills with more coming and a female who wants to kill him! He keeps trying to go to her because he loves her and she hisses and swats at him. He is twice her size but a real mush cat. Everyone loves him! Its heartbreaking to watch. We are on day 3 and it has not improved yet. I keep them separated as much as I can. I am on temp disability for another month due to surgery and I can monitor it all day so he stays safe. I understand he smells different to her but it is heartbreaking to watch this play out. Its like she is sorry he is back. I hope the next few days changes things and I will post what happens. I have tried all the tricks that you can find by searching for a solution for this issue. The ironic thing here is that we had read that the Siberian breed is considered a very healthy breed due to its history which created a very strong gene pool. But I guess we can all get sick. Well that's my nightmare situation. I almost wish I did not love animals because we are a wreck in this household right now. I hope all of you are doing ok. Thanks for letting me vent.

Hi, welcome to TCS.  I am sorry that you, and your cats, are going through so much right now.  

Is your cat purely indoors?  Has he been losing weight?  Does he seem like he has a ravenous appetite, but still throws up?  Are his poops normal or diarrhea (when he has them, of course)?  I ask these questions because it sounds similar to a situation that I went through with my cats.

So very sorry about your boy kitty's troubles!  I hope your vet is able to figure out his medical problem quickly.

As for the rejection from his friend, that sadly is common.  It's been just over a year since my boy kitty had a 2 or 3 day hospital stay, and one of the two girl kitties I had at the time (I have three now) still hisses at him.  My boy is like yours, just a big, sweet, loving thing who probably doesn't even know how to hiss (I've never heard him do it).  Before the hospital stay, they adored each other.  Oddly, these two girls are sisters and the other has no issue with him. 

My suggestion is to carefully go through the "introducing a new cat" procedure that is found on this site, and be *really* patient and take your time with it.  You may even need to go through it more than once.  It seems to work for most people.  It only partly worked for me, but it's still okay because with mine it's all noise and absolutely no physical aggression.  They can be safely left to their own devices, basically the difference is that they used to all hang out together, now the two original girls hang out together, and the boy and the new-ish 9 month old kitten hang out together. 

Your story sounds like mine. Male cat constipated, throwing up, wanting to eat after throwing up. No real good answers from various vets (we went to emergency ER and our regular vet). Rejection from female litter mate upon arriving home.

This is what I did to resolve the tension between the two cats: Gave them both baths. Once they smelled the same, all was good. For future vet visits, we took the female as "support", essentially so both would smell the same upon arrival home.

For your male, he may have a problem with the food you feed him, unfortunately. Mine kept throwing up and I narrowed it down to chicken. Once I stopped all food with chicken, he stopped throwing up. He had a lot of other problems, too, which pretty much went away after stopping chicken. You can read more about Tim under the various threads I started.

Thank you all for your support. I love this site! At least I know we are not alone with this. Both cats are purely indoors. Both fixed but not declawed. (I would never do that). He started losing weight when he started throwing up everytime he ate. His appetite was great right after he threw up. And it did not matter what we fed him out of his normal diet. If it went in it came back up. That was the start of the vet visit and hospital visit. And his poops were all normal. I have always cleaned the litter boxes at least 2 times a day or more if nec to keep track of any problems. Now he is home and wants to eat his old foods but the vet wants him on the RX food which he does not like. He tried a couple of bites. We tired mixing alittle of the old food in with the RX food but he only at alittle once. We have to feed the female separately because he wants what she has. They have always ate off the same plate and never fought over food. He is really just eating hard food at this point. Definitely losing weight and refuses any of the RX stuff now. We are in communication with our home vet who came by the other day. She thinks he has some kind of kidney infection. We are treating him with antibiotics. She also gave him a shot for parasites just in case he ate a cricket or something. She said cats can get them that way. I wonder what would happen if he ate some of his old food now because he is not throwing up what he does eat. But I want to follow vets instructions. The female is starting to come around and we think a few more days will make a difference. She has gone up and sniffed his butt and the have been nose to nose without issue but then the next time he approaches her, she might hiss. She does not swipe at him which is a relief but its still sad to watch. Best friends for 4 yrs and after 3 days away, all this drama. Still breaks my heart. When she does hiss he just stops and either sits down or walks away. He is the kindest, sweetest boy I have ever seen. Everyone at the vet hospital loved him to death and told us he gave them no trouble at all no matter what the did to him. I hope all this resolves and I will keep posting until it is. Will try to get both cats eating better food in the future. But that will be a whole new adventure for sure!

Gosh as I read through your thread all I could do was shake my head, you poor thing!!

So the reason for his sister rejecting him is his smell after the vet stay.

It is out of fear that she acts the way she does, like KEEP AWAY FROM ME! THAT SMELL CAN HURT ME! type thing.

Do some scent swapping after swiping him down with a baby wipe or bathing him.

She will come around fine.

Personally, I would stop all his regular food, rx food, etc if he is not eating it and losing weight.

You want his system to settle down before anymore of this.

Chicken or turkey baby food, chicken boiled, or turkey boiled, cut it up, put some baby food on top, and zap it to warm it up.

He should do fine on this. For 3 days, only this.

It's easy on the digestive tract, and will help straighten him out inside.

Then slowly, start allowing him small amts at a time gradually of the food you will be feeding him in the future, preferrably canned, they love fancy feast classics, or the chunky chicken. Stay away from the sliced/grilled/cheese flavors/not too much fish.

See if that doesn't help do the trick.

I don't have any similar experience, but maybe some Feliway would help calm the kitties.

Thanks for the additional advice. I will try anything to get my big buddy back to full health.

Just want to update everyone. The male cat Nicholas is now doing much better. He is eating fine and not throwing up. My vet who treats him regularly finally saw him and treated him for possible internal parasites. She is coming back next week for a follow up and will re do blood work to see if it shows any signs of infection. So after all this time and $ we have a seemingly back to health cat with no definite cause. All attempts to get him and his sister to eat new and better foods has failed. They only want their reg food. For now we will let this be until we have the strength to fight that battle! It took a full week but the female finally has stopped hissing and has accepted his presence. They even ate out of the same dish at the same time today. He still is a little cautious around her but that is not a bad thing. I would say they are 95% back to normal. I am glad to have some good news for a change. Thank you all for your support.

Hooray, hurrah, hooray!

Here's to a happy day!

WONDERFUL news!!          

Agreed - I know it's expensive, but try some Feliway, either in diffuser form, or on the collars.