I'm beside myself. I have a 9 year old female who has been in perfect health, sees the vet regularly and keeps up with all her shots. This past Sunday, I realized that she had been seeming to sleep more than I thought usual for her the past few days. On Monday, she started vomiting white foam and it increased throughout the day. It seemed clear by now that she was in distress so I stayed up all night with her and called my vet as soon as they opened in the morning. They were wonderful and were able to work me into the schedule later that afternoon on an emergency basis.
My kitty has always been high strung and extremely difficult to get in a cat carrier for a trip to the vet. Yesterday was much worse. I had closed off all of her normal hiding places but she still found some and coaxing her out with food had no effect. If I tried to remove her physically, she would attack me, even if I used a heavy towel to try and grab her. She was obviously in great distress and kept growling and hissing at me.
I called the vet and they suggested contacting a mobile vet to come directly to the house. I decided to give it one more try after that and finally succeeded in getting her in the carrier and to our regular vet.
He took her back to the surgical area in case he had to sedate her to examine her. Fortunately, he was able to examine her without needing to do that. He gave her a thorough physical exam, took a full blood panel, gave her IV fluids, a shot to stop her vomiting and a shot of 12 day antibiotic in case she had an infection somewhere. He said he hadn't been able to feel any masses or blockages in her GI tract (or anywhere else) even though she had some black in her stool. He didn't do an x-ray at that point and saying he couldn't find anything obviously wrong yet, let me take her home. This morning, he called me and said that her blood tests were completely normal.
Ever since I got her home last night, she has done nothing but lie in one place with a glazed look in her eyes and occasionally growling. She did make it to her litter box at one point this afternoon and tried to urinate but whimpered and couldn't. The biggest problem however is that she hasn't eaten any food since Monday, even if I give her some plain white roast chicken which she usually goes mad over. The vet had me pick up some urgent care prescription cat food they mixed for her and said that if we couldn't get some food in her some how, her prognosis is poor.
Feeding tubes would only prolong things and I couldn't afford expensive treatment anyway. He did say that it would take a while for the antibiotics to kick in and we will talk tomorrow to decide the next steps. She has just continued to get worse this afternoon and I've had to keep checking her to make sure she is still alive. We just can't figure out what has happened to her yet, at least without more expensive testing. His best guess at this point seems to be some type of toxin but I can't imagine where that would have come from. I don't keep any plants around the house specifically for that reason and am careful to keep anything else that might be toxic away from her. She also never gets treated with any powders or other products on her fur (or anywhere near her), such as flea treatments, etc.
I'm just beside myself because it happened so fast and there's no obvious cause. I just got her a brand new cat condo a few weeks ago and she was loving it. I went through something similar with my previous cat 9 years ago. Her lungs suddenly filled up with fluid one night. My vet was able to drain the fluid and keep her alive a few more months but she was 14 yrs old at that point and couldn't be saved. I'm not ready to go through something like that again.
I just tried to spoon feed the vet's special food to her a few minutes ago as he recommended but she just moved away from it. About all I can do at this point is keep telling her I love her and pray that the antibiotics or some other miracle kicks in soon.
My kitty has always been high strung and extremely difficult to get in a cat carrier for a trip to the vet. Yesterday was much worse. I had closed off all of her normal hiding places but she still found some and coaxing her out with food had no effect. If I tried to remove her physically, she would attack me, even if I used a heavy towel to try and grab her. She was obviously in great distress and kept growling and hissing at me.
I called the vet and they suggested contacting a mobile vet to come directly to the house. I decided to give it one more try after that and finally succeeded in getting her in the carrier and to our regular vet.
He took her back to the surgical area in case he had to sedate her to examine her. Fortunately, he was able to examine her without needing to do that. He gave her a thorough physical exam, took a full blood panel, gave her IV fluids, a shot to stop her vomiting and a shot of 12 day antibiotic in case she had an infection somewhere. He said he hadn't been able to feel any masses or blockages in her GI tract (or anywhere else) even though she had some black in her stool. He didn't do an x-ray at that point and saying he couldn't find anything obviously wrong yet, let me take her home. This morning, he called me and said that her blood tests were completely normal.
Ever since I got her home last night, she has done nothing but lie in one place with a glazed look in her eyes and occasionally growling. She did make it to her litter box at one point this afternoon and tried to urinate but whimpered and couldn't. The biggest problem however is that she hasn't eaten any food since Monday, even if I give her some plain white roast chicken which she usually goes mad over. The vet had me pick up some urgent care prescription cat food they mixed for her and said that if we couldn't get some food in her some how, her prognosis is poor.
Feeding tubes would only prolong things and I couldn't afford expensive treatment anyway. He did say that it would take a while for the antibiotics to kick in and we will talk tomorrow to decide the next steps. She has just continued to get worse this afternoon and I've had to keep checking her to make sure she is still alive. We just can't figure out what has happened to her yet, at least without more expensive testing. His best guess at this point seems to be some type of toxin but I can't imagine where that would have come from. I don't keep any plants around the house specifically for that reason and am careful to keep anything else that might be toxic away from her. She also never gets treated with any powders or other products on her fur (or anywhere near her), such as flea treatments, etc.
I'm just beside myself because it happened so fast and there's no obvious cause. I just got her a brand new cat condo a few weeks ago and she was loving it. I went through something similar with my previous cat 9 years ago. Her lungs suddenly filled up with fluid one night. My vet was able to drain the fluid and keep her alive a few more months but she was 14 yrs old at that point and couldn't be saved. I'm not ready to go through something like that again.
I just tried to spoon feed the vet's special food to her a few minutes ago as he recommended but she just moved away from it. About all I can do at this point is keep telling her I love her and pray that the antibiotics or some other miracle kicks in soon.