- Joined
- Nov 22, 2016
- Messages
- 3
- Purraise
- 1
Hi. Newbie here who just found this site as I continue to search for answers. I'm hoping for some insight on when cats are ill & purring. Forgive me this is likely going to be a bit long as I go through everything; it all happened so fast I’m still processing things and figured additional info might help with the insight. If you want to just see the basic question, it’s in the last paragraph.
Saturday morning I picked up my 13 year old tabby, Jasmine, and her 10 year old tuxedo brother, Jasper, from a week at a boarder they’ve stayed with several times before. Jasmine has been diabetic for the last 3 years and her insulin has been regularly monitored and updated when recommended by the vet and the boarder knew her schedule for feeding & insulin. When they were picked up Jasmine was acting like normal and even meowing a little on the ride home as she sometimes does. Brought them home and immediately gave both a bath, starting with Jasmine. As soon as I started to give her a bath I noticed she wasn’t acting normal. Drinking the warm bath water, shivering, lying down sphinx pose while I rinsed her. Her actions continued to be weird: not bathing herself to dry off, shivering, not moving much. I set her on a heated blanket our cats & dogs love to keep her warm. Worried it was her diabetes, I started tracking her blood sugar and when she dropped to 78, I immediately gave her sugar water & brought her to a vet, still somewhat damp from her bath. They did an exam and found that her heart sounded fine but she was dehydrated and her temp was a bit low so they set her in a Bair Hugger (think inflatable pillow with holes that blows warm air) to warm & dry her more. Tested her blood sugar and she was up to 106 so they gave her some SQ fluids and sent us home, thinking we were going out of the woods, but told to monitor her blood sugar and temp. At home I finished carefully drying her with a blow dryer and wrapped her in a blanket and held her to warm her up and she stopped shivering after a few minutes and began to purr and I just continued holding her in her wrapped burrito purring. I offered her water which she drank a fair amount of and wet food which she ate a little bit, but seemed weaker. Checked her blood sugar and temp before bed and she was coming up on both which was a good sign, so lied her on top of the comforter between us with a blanket on her.
At 2am, I noticed she wasn’t on the bed and found her lying in sphinx pose next to her food & water bowls which was odd. I tried putting her in the litterbox a second time since the vet visit and she just sat for a few seconds before making move to lie down in the litter, so I pulled her out. I offered her water but she only took a couple licks and then would just hang her head over the bowl. She had no interest in the food. I placed the blanket on top of her on the floor and lied down next to her for a few minutes when she made to get out from under the blanket. She was so weak I had to remove the blanket from her for her to crawl out, and she walked over by the litter box and immediately puked what I assumed to be all the water she had drank in the last 12 hours. Knowing she had been dehydrated the red flags where there. I immediately took her to the emergency vet. I brought them up to speed and they confirmed she was weak and dehydrated and checked her in to be hospitalized. I was told they would stabilize her and when the day doctor, who also happened to specialize in critical care, arrived at 7am or so he would have a better idea of her condition. I called them at 8am and was told when the doctor finished his rounds with all the patients and an exam on her that I would hear from him. 10am I called again and finally spoke to the doctor who said she was doing “okay” but definitely weak and somewhat out of it. 11:30am we arrived to visit her and talk to the doctor. When they brought her into the room, lying on a bed with a blanket, she didn’t really move or look up much so I put my hand under her head and started petting her and she started purring. I started crying because she was so weak and not knowing what was wrong.
The vet came in and what I thought was possibly diabetic shock wasn’t. Her kidneys were failing. Her creatine was extremely high at 12 (usually 2 is the high end of normal range), her BUN number was also extremely high at 140 (high end of normal is 36), and her potassium levels were up. She was also down to 10.5 lbs from 12.5 lbs at her last regular check 10 weeks prior. She was dehydrated and they had her on fluids since she arrived but still hadn’t urinated. Her heart rate had also become weak. She still had no interest in water or food and if she didn’t make urine in the next 12 hours we would need to make a decision: either commit to dialysis which, with her number so high, would require 5-7 additional days of hospitalization to find out IF she could recover from this, assuming it's an acute kidney failure vs. chronic, but even then with dialysis and her numbers, uncertainty if she would make it and have quality of life after, OR our alternative was to euthanize. I did not go into that room expecting the news to have to consider euthanizing her.
I asked so many questions, a couple duplicates because I was trying to process the situation. After almost an hour we told the vet we needed to go home and think about it. Really, it was me. I read up on as much as I could, everything I could find. I had no idea kidney failure was a common cause of death in cats. I knew she was 13 and had diabetes, but we had been on top of it and she had always been an indoor cat. I thought I had at least a couple more years before I had to consider her moving on. Just before 6pm the vet called with an update.
They had increased her fluids when we left to try and stimulate urine production and while she had put on a fair amount of water weight, her bladder wasn’t any larger. She wasn’t making urine and since she hadn’t peed in such a long time and wasn’t producing urine, we needed to make a decision. My husband drove us and I cried the whole way. During our time at home we considered slight changes in her behavior over the last several months. We went in and spoke with the vet again. He emphasized we did have options. Her full blood test results would come back the next afternoon, but if we wanted to keep her we would need to put her on dialysis right away. The reality was A) we wouldn’t know until the full blood panel late the next afternoon if she had acute kidney failure which COULD be reversible and B) even if she had acute kidney failure we wouldn’t know for 5-7 days if it would be reversible for her. So to even find out it would have been $15k for the dialysis & hospitalization for those days. The reality he mentioned though was with her condition both in how she was acting, her numbers, and especially because she wasn’t producing urine, her chances were very slim. She was not herself. So, after some more discussion, we made the decision to let her go. A friend had found her as a tiny kitten in a parking lot and she was my first pet I got shortly after I moved out and I’ve never had to make that decision before.
They brought her in lying on a couple blankets and we had some time with her. This time, she barely had her left eye half open and wouldn’t lift her head. I tried so hard to summon the courage to not be so distressed because I didn’t want her to feel it but I couldn’t help but cry. I put my hand under her head and she started purring and we petted her. I used to make a purr noise with her and put my forehead and nose to her forehead and purred with her as we petted her. As the vet administered the dosage, she continued to purr until she stopped. I originally felt somewhat comforted knowing that the two times I saw her in the hospital she would start purring when I cradled her head in my hand, but I’ve since read that cats also purr when they’re in pain or afraid. I’m now worried that she caught onto my distress and was purring from fear. Has anyone gone through anything similar or have insight? I’m also trying to understand why she suddenly went downhill so quickly. She was fine when I picked her up and as soon as I got her home, she started showing symptoms of not being well. Did she know and wait for me to return and get her? I'm left trying to sort through all of this as she went downhill in less than 48 hours.
Saturday morning I picked up my 13 year old tabby, Jasmine, and her 10 year old tuxedo brother, Jasper, from a week at a boarder they’ve stayed with several times before. Jasmine has been diabetic for the last 3 years and her insulin has been regularly monitored and updated when recommended by the vet and the boarder knew her schedule for feeding & insulin. When they were picked up Jasmine was acting like normal and even meowing a little on the ride home as she sometimes does. Brought them home and immediately gave both a bath, starting with Jasmine. As soon as I started to give her a bath I noticed she wasn’t acting normal. Drinking the warm bath water, shivering, lying down sphinx pose while I rinsed her. Her actions continued to be weird: not bathing herself to dry off, shivering, not moving much. I set her on a heated blanket our cats & dogs love to keep her warm. Worried it was her diabetes, I started tracking her blood sugar and when she dropped to 78, I immediately gave her sugar water & brought her to a vet, still somewhat damp from her bath. They did an exam and found that her heart sounded fine but she was dehydrated and her temp was a bit low so they set her in a Bair Hugger (think inflatable pillow with holes that blows warm air) to warm & dry her more. Tested her blood sugar and she was up to 106 so they gave her some SQ fluids and sent us home, thinking we were going out of the woods, but told to monitor her blood sugar and temp. At home I finished carefully drying her with a blow dryer and wrapped her in a blanket and held her to warm her up and she stopped shivering after a few minutes and began to purr and I just continued holding her in her wrapped burrito purring. I offered her water which she drank a fair amount of and wet food which she ate a little bit, but seemed weaker. Checked her blood sugar and temp before bed and she was coming up on both which was a good sign, so lied her on top of the comforter between us with a blanket on her.
At 2am, I noticed she wasn’t on the bed and found her lying in sphinx pose next to her food & water bowls which was odd. I tried putting her in the litterbox a second time since the vet visit and she just sat for a few seconds before making move to lie down in the litter, so I pulled her out. I offered her water but she only took a couple licks and then would just hang her head over the bowl. She had no interest in the food. I placed the blanket on top of her on the floor and lied down next to her for a few minutes when she made to get out from under the blanket. She was so weak I had to remove the blanket from her for her to crawl out, and she walked over by the litter box and immediately puked what I assumed to be all the water she had drank in the last 12 hours. Knowing she had been dehydrated the red flags where there. I immediately took her to the emergency vet. I brought them up to speed and they confirmed she was weak and dehydrated and checked her in to be hospitalized. I was told they would stabilize her and when the day doctor, who also happened to specialize in critical care, arrived at 7am or so he would have a better idea of her condition. I called them at 8am and was told when the doctor finished his rounds with all the patients and an exam on her that I would hear from him. 10am I called again and finally spoke to the doctor who said she was doing “okay” but definitely weak and somewhat out of it. 11:30am we arrived to visit her and talk to the doctor. When they brought her into the room, lying on a bed with a blanket, she didn’t really move or look up much so I put my hand under her head and started petting her and she started purring. I started crying because she was so weak and not knowing what was wrong.
The vet came in and what I thought was possibly diabetic shock wasn’t. Her kidneys were failing. Her creatine was extremely high at 12 (usually 2 is the high end of normal range), her BUN number was also extremely high at 140 (high end of normal is 36), and her potassium levels were up. She was also down to 10.5 lbs from 12.5 lbs at her last regular check 10 weeks prior. She was dehydrated and they had her on fluids since she arrived but still hadn’t urinated. Her heart rate had also become weak. She still had no interest in water or food and if she didn’t make urine in the next 12 hours we would need to make a decision: either commit to dialysis which, with her number so high, would require 5-7 additional days of hospitalization to find out IF she could recover from this, assuming it's an acute kidney failure vs. chronic, but even then with dialysis and her numbers, uncertainty if she would make it and have quality of life after, OR our alternative was to euthanize. I did not go into that room expecting the news to have to consider euthanizing her.
I asked so many questions, a couple duplicates because I was trying to process the situation. After almost an hour we told the vet we needed to go home and think about it. Really, it was me. I read up on as much as I could, everything I could find. I had no idea kidney failure was a common cause of death in cats. I knew she was 13 and had diabetes, but we had been on top of it and she had always been an indoor cat. I thought I had at least a couple more years before I had to consider her moving on. Just before 6pm the vet called with an update.
They had increased her fluids when we left to try and stimulate urine production and while she had put on a fair amount of water weight, her bladder wasn’t any larger. She wasn’t making urine and since she hadn’t peed in such a long time and wasn’t producing urine, we needed to make a decision. My husband drove us and I cried the whole way. During our time at home we considered slight changes in her behavior over the last several months. We went in and spoke with the vet again. He emphasized we did have options. Her full blood test results would come back the next afternoon, but if we wanted to keep her we would need to put her on dialysis right away. The reality was A) we wouldn’t know until the full blood panel late the next afternoon if she had acute kidney failure which COULD be reversible and B) even if she had acute kidney failure we wouldn’t know for 5-7 days if it would be reversible for her. So to even find out it would have been $15k for the dialysis & hospitalization for those days. The reality he mentioned though was with her condition both in how she was acting, her numbers, and especially because she wasn’t producing urine, her chances were very slim. She was not herself. So, after some more discussion, we made the decision to let her go. A friend had found her as a tiny kitten in a parking lot and she was my first pet I got shortly after I moved out and I’ve never had to make that decision before.
They brought her in lying on a couple blankets and we had some time with her. This time, she barely had her left eye half open and wouldn’t lift her head. I tried so hard to summon the courage to not be so distressed because I didn’t want her to feel it but I couldn’t help but cry. I put my hand under her head and she started purring and we petted her. I used to make a purr noise with her and put my forehead and nose to her forehead and purred with her as we petted her. As the vet administered the dosage, she continued to purr until she stopped. I originally felt somewhat comforted knowing that the two times I saw her in the hospital she would start purring when I cradled her head in my hand, but I’ve since read that cats also purr when they’re in pain or afraid. I’m now worried that she caught onto my distress and was purring from fear. Has anyone gone through anything similar or have insight? I’m also trying to understand why she suddenly went downhill so quickly. She was fine when I picked her up and as soon as I got her home, she started showing symptoms of not being well. Did she know and wait for me to return and get her? I'm left trying to sort through all of this as she went downhill in less than 48 hours.
