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- Apr 23, 2016
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My darling Maggie (the cat in my profile photo) just turned 17. She's been holding steady with CKD for 2 years. She gets fluids every night and her kidney values have largely stayed the same. She is on prednisolone every other day (low dose) for her allergies-- she's always stuffed up and congested. That's been going on for 3+ years but she's been on the preds for about 6 months. She's also on Orbax for the upper respiratory infections she gets from her allergies. So she's been on that for a month.
Over the past few years, she has occasionally had UTI-like symptoms. She cries in the box (sometimes the bathtub), pees out a little blood and sometimes a clot, and then urinates normally again. This happened this past April and cleared up right away. It happened again 2 days ago (Saturday morning). She cried and jumped in and out of the box a bit. She urinated a normal amount but also urinated out two small clots. Yesterday she was fine. She's eating and acting great otherwise. She does have a difficult time cleaning herself, though. I brought in a urine sample this morning to the vet and the vet surprised me by saying she must have a bladder tumor. There is no way she could have an infection while on the antibiotic, and a tumor is most likely. The only way to confirm would be an x-ray at a specialist with contrast. And we wouldn't put an older cat through surgery. So at some point, she would just not be able to urinate.
This is horrible. I don't want to wait until I have to decide if she can't urinate and then we put her down in an emergency situation. That would be terrible. I guess we could get the x-ray and then we'd know for sure, but I hate even putting her under for that at her age. I love this vet and have used him for 10+ years but sometimes he goes to the worst-case scenario first (which can be helpful sometimes!). I think there has to be a possibility of a UTI or even just irritation in her bladder that would cause an occasional clot but wouldn't mean a tumor. Has anyone else experienced this before?
Over the past few years, she has occasionally had UTI-like symptoms. She cries in the box (sometimes the bathtub), pees out a little blood and sometimes a clot, and then urinates normally again. This happened this past April and cleared up right away. It happened again 2 days ago (Saturday morning). She cried and jumped in and out of the box a bit. She urinated a normal amount but also urinated out two small clots. Yesterday she was fine. She's eating and acting great otherwise. She does have a difficult time cleaning herself, though. I brought in a urine sample this morning to the vet and the vet surprised me by saying she must have a bladder tumor. There is no way she could have an infection while on the antibiotic, and a tumor is most likely. The only way to confirm would be an x-ray at a specialist with contrast. And we wouldn't put an older cat through surgery. So at some point, she would just not be able to urinate.
This is horrible. I don't want to wait until I have to decide if she can't urinate and then we put her down in an emergency situation. That would be terrible. I guess we could get the x-ray and then we'd know for sure, but I hate even putting her under for that at her age. I love this vet and have used him for 10+ years but sometimes he goes to the worst-case scenario first (which can be helpful sometimes!). I think there has to be a possibility of a UTI or even just irritation in her bladder that would cause an occasional clot but wouldn't mean a tumor. Has anyone else experienced this before?