Recently Spayed Cat Behaving Strangely

[Sharli]

I guess I'm posting this for some sort of peace of mind. I've reached out to my vet, but since the start of the pandemic, they are very busy and getting a response can take longer than my anxiety can handle. I got two of my cats spayed on Friday of last week and up until yesterday evening, everything was normal. They've both been wearing post-surgery onesies and their incisions looked good from what I could tell. But last night when I went to check on my 7 year old cat, Tesla, I found that she'd urinated on herself and was very lethargic.

I emailed my vet right away and reached out to the emergency vets in my area, but they were at capacity. When I picked her up, she defecated on me, was hanging very limp in my arms, and began panting/yowling. As the night progressed, I really worried I was going to lose her. All she wanted to do was lay on the bathroom floor (maybe because it's cool?) but she seemed like she'd given up on life. Fast forward to this morning and it's like she used one of her nine lives. She was alert, she was eating, she was purring. Still a little weak, but as the day has gone on, she's moved around more.

I just don't understand what could have caused the sudden decline or why she seems to be feeling better now. It's all very curious to me. In the post-surgery instructions, they told me to give her 1/2 a tablet of Gabapentin for pain every 12 hours in food. My best guess is that I may have accidentally given her a little more than half of the powder in the capsule, but would that cause the sort of behavior she was showing? Just wondering if anyone else has ever had a similar experience and what the outcome was? I just took the attached photo of her about a half hour ago.

 

[sivyaleah]

I can see how the gabapentin *may* have something to do with it, especially if you gave a little more than you should have.

A decent dose of gabapentin will make (most) cats very very lethargic to the point of seeming almost comatose. So if she was really loopy, had to pee/poop and couldn't get herself up it's very possible she voided where she was.

I used to give our younger one that medication so I could groom her (long hair, hated being groomed and it had to happen). She'd pretty much pass out for a couple of hours on it, and stagger around before and after for a while. I mean, out like a light kind of sleep. The firt time I used it I was pretty shocked just how deep a sleep she was in.

Of course, she should be seen as soon as you can bring her in just to have her vitals taken and make sure nothing else is amiss.