Cat owners may know that sometimes cats just get sick. Many times when cats are hospitalized, the cause is unknown but they are able to be treated and go on with life. It’s one of the mysteries of the feline that can be very frustrating for those treating these sick pets. Because they improve, and really that’s all the owner really wants most often, investigation in the root cause isn’t always pursued.
But there are a few occasions when the answer is presented and when that happens, the feeling of closure is one that cannot be explained to those who have not experienced it. I’ll take you on a journey to one of my own personal experiences with my own personal cat. I will take you through being from my own personal point of view, being the owner of the cat but also being familiar with the veterinary field as it is my primary area of employment.
Our cat, Levi was our first pet as a couple and is ten years of age. He started to show signs of decline near Christmas. His appetite steadily became decreased over the span of a couple of days and he began vomiting. Vomiting is a normal thing for this cat as he has a very sensitive stomach and can’t tolerate other foods other than his normal diet. Typically, it improves with some anti-vomiting medications. However, even given his medication, he continued to get worse. By day three, my husband and I were very worried. A phone call was placed with the veterinarian that I work with and he told me that, given Levi’s history of having vomiting episodes, I should bring him in, give him some fluids to rehydrate him and some injections to settle his stomach.
That evening, after giving him the medications prescribed, we were very encouraged. Levi was perkier, drank a bit of water and was able to rest comfortably. The excitement didn’t last, however. The next morning Levi was no where to be found. I should tell you now that along with Levi we have other cats, one of which is very nosey and very protective of all the other cats. This cat, Diablo, noticed I was anxious as I hunted to find Levi. Diablo was the one who found him. He ran around sticking his nose in every corner until Levi was found. Levi was found sleeping in his pet carrier, which is an odd place for this cat to sleep. Diablo was obviously proud of himself for finding the lost kitty but was also pacing and had an anxious gait about him. Through a more thorough investigation, I noticed that Levi had declined during the night. He was too weak to even hold his head up to acknowledge Diablo or me. Around the pet carrier there were obvious signs of more vomiting and his bowl was still full of food that he hadn’t eaten the prior night.
My husband and I packed Levi up and headed into the pet hospital. We drove through the back roads to avoid the excess of traffic as it was the day after Christmas. The roads went up and down several hills and through curves and corners. Levi never moved from his spot in his carrier during our ride. He never even lifted his head.
We arrived at the hospital quickly and were instructed to take radiographs of his abdomen to be sure he hadn’t ingested something that he shouldn’t have. These were clear but when the veterinarian did an exam on him, he was showing obvious signs of have a very painful belly and was dehydrated. He needed to stay in the hospital and put on intravenous fluids and medications. We agreed to leave him; he’s our cat after all and he had to be treated. The vet said to give him 24 hours on fluids to treat for pancreatitis and see how he would do. Deep down we knew he was probably on the verge of not making it but we knew he was in good hands and the vet at least attempted to be hopeful. He ran blood work on Levi and kept us posted on the results which mostly showed that he had some kind of very bad infection.
The 24 hours went by and turned into another 24 hours. Levi was no longer vomiting but he still wasn’t eating and still was very painful in his abdomen. We visited Levi in the hospital two and three times a day. His attitude improved and he acted like he felt a little better but otherwise, there were no changes. Blood work was repeated to compare results and it did show some signs of improving but not much. By day five in the hospital, the vet let us know that there was nothing more that he could do for Levi and we needed to take him to a referral hospital. We were to have an ultrasound done and have a feeding tube placed. His belly was no longer painful but a cat can only go so long without eating.
My husband and I were slightly horrified at the thought of having tubes sticking out of our cat. We decided that since his attitude had improved we might as well give him a chance at home to see if he would eat in his normal environment before taking him to the referral. We weren’t opposed to taking him, we just wanted to give him a chance, one night, at home to see how he would do.
That night, he ate. It wasn’t a lot but it was something. The vet would call our home to get regular updates on him and said he was encouraged by this, but having worked with him for several years, I could tell there was something in his voice that still had him worried. He told us to keep him home and see if he continues to eat, and if he doesn’t, we were to force feed him through the weekend.
At one point, we got a call with some blood test results that were sent to the laboratory. Our vet boiled it down for us saying that the lab thinks this could all be due to a bone marrow disease. Because my husband had a history of having a bone marrow disease, our hearts sank. The same tests they were recommending for our cat were the same ones my husband had to go through when he was ill. We weren’t up to putting Levi through that. We were instructed to just continue feeding Levi and to bring him in again to have his blood work rerun. If it changes for the better, then the question of a bone marrow disease would be dismissed. We were pushing for that.
On the last night of the weekend, my husband was petting Levi trying to encourage him to eat. He found a mat on his fur that he wanted me to look at. Upon closer investigation I realized that it was no mat. It was a wound. I started to think that perhaps a cat bite may have abscessed and could have been the cause of this entire thing. It got bigger as I removed hair, however, and then I thought that perhaps our dog had bitten Levi. When all the hair was removed, I realized that it was something I’d never seen before. It was a large pink fleshy lesion on his side surrounded by a bright red ring. Being used to seeing gross stuff at work, I wanted to poke and prod it some more. My husband on the other hand, wasn’t as excited about that. When we spoke to Levi’s veterinarian that evening, he was confused. We took pictures of it and emailed them to the vet, as it was New Year’s Eve and the clinic wasn’t open at the time. We waited and waited for a reply via e-mail but got none. On one hand we thought that could be a good thing; that this could just be nothing. On the other hand, we thought it’s probably bad. We thought he’s probably not replying because he doesn’t want to tell us what it is.
The next morning, I showed up at work early to speak with the vet. His face was grim and he didn’t look anxious to say anything. He told me that what we are seeing is a spider bite from the poisonous Brown Recluse and the tissue is dead and necrotic. He said Levi needed to be taken to surgery and have the lesion removed. Because of its size, from the pictures we sent to him, he was worried about having enough skin left to close the incision. He was also worried about the anesthetic risk Levi would be as he’d been sick for so long. He did another exam on Levi and determined that this could possibly be the cause of his entire illness. When he spoke, he didn’t sound too sure of himself to me, but I’d hoped that was because he didn’t want to get my hopes up. Either way, the lesion had to come off. A bite like that from the Brown Recluse Spider wasn’t something that could be left alone. After making a quick call to my husband to tell him the news of the poisonous spider bite and that his cat would need to have surgery, we anesthetized the cat and the vet removed the tissue. Now, Levi is no Slim Jim and has quite a bit of girth and skin to spare so closure was pretty easy. Surgery went well and Levi recovered quickly. As soon as he was awake, he began to groom his fur, which was something he hadn’t done for weeks.
Levi came home with me after noon. We were hopeful that he would improve now that the lesion was off. We thought that it just had to be cause of everything. It would explain the changes in his blood counts, the painful belly, and the vomiting. We expected to give him a few days and see how he felt after surgery. We never expected him to improve as soon as he got home. Most cats would have still been groggy after having an anesthetic. Levi, however, was banging on his carrier door to get out and bolted for his food bowl. He greatly improved the following days and we were ecstatic that we had our kitty boy back.
It doesn’t stop there however. Three days after his surgery, a new lesion was found on his other side. This lesion was determined to be yet another spider bite. It was treated appropriately and Levi still continues to improve.
Why tell the story of our cat, Levi? The answer is simple. While his story ended up with a happy ending, had we not acted when we did when he declined, we most surely would have lost him; Levi, our most adored pet, the cat who has always been with us and has gone everywhere with us and traveled many miles with us. Members of our family will address cards and greet us as “Chad, Faith and Levi. Our home felt so empty without him here. To lose him would have been like losing a child to us. We realize that millions of people feel the same way. We also realize that millions of people do not know that there are these types of potentially dangerous spiders in their homes, just like us. We never see spiders in our home but now that we know they are there, we can see where there might be some and what to do about them. Traps can be set, bombs set off, and exterminators hired.
While not all cases of sick felines can be completely solved and can only be treated, I wanted to share the story of our kitty who was heading down the path of being one of these unsolved illness cases but in the end, the cause was discovered and treated. Some cats may need more treatment and tests than others but we knew our cat was in good hands and were willing to do what we had to in order to be sure our boy was going to be alright.
