Lucky To Have Her.

Edition #138 — December 21, 2010

The last two weeks have been some of the most terrifying in my life as I watched my beloved cat, Lucky, being saved from the brink of death three times. For those who have a deep emotional attachment to their pets, you can understand what kind of crisis I have just gone through. It's not something I wish on anyone but it has shown me that my Lucky is one tough cat.

Episode One: Signs Of Trouble

It began Saturday, two weeks ago, when I prepared Lucky's breakfast and she stayed away in another room. Right away a dreadful feeling hit me in my stomach. I tried not to get too worried but when a cat that runs anxiously toward the food bowl for six years suddenly stops eating without warning, you know there's something wrong. She did eventually eat but always vomited up her meal. That means trouble - serious trouble. I called my vet at 2pm, just as he was closing. No one answered the phone and I was stuck, helpless with a sick cat.

Lucky's condition worsened and the next day I brought her to an emergency clinic about 1/2 hour away. They wanted to do a battery of tests but my main concern was that she might have swallowed something and developed a blockage in her intestine. The xray showed no such problem, nor did she show any signs of pain. And so I went home and planned to bring her to my regular vet the the next day.

Monday came and Lucky was in bad shape. Her blood tests showed that her liver was already affected from not eating; cat's get a "fatty liver" after 24 hours without food. Not good. With IV fluids, injections of B12, antibiotics and overnight care she began to recover enough that the vet sent her home on Tuesday. The next day was his day off and I already had a bad feeling about that.

Once home Lucky was back to normal for about an hour. But then all of a sudden she seemed to slip back into her sick mode of previous days. She refused to eat and looked miserable again. I was told to give her some liquid to coat her nauseous stomach so she could take her pill and eat food without discomfort. That strategy didn't work. IInstead, she vomitted out this fluid ten minutes later and I was unable to feed her or give her the antibiotic pill. In desperation, I gave her some broth through a syringe just to get something into her stomach. I'll never know if that was the cause of what happened next.

Episode Two: Aspiration Pneumonia

The next day Lucky started breathing really fast and shallow. Unfortunately the vet was off and we had to take her to another doctor nearby. Sadly, he was a real creep, spending the first five minutes with his back turned to us without giving my poor, suffering cat even a cursory glance. He was training someone and seemed to be putting on a show for the young intern. He seemed more interested in writing down information like a heartless beaurocrat. When he finally did observe Lucky he immediately diagnosed her as having heart disease because of her rapid heart rate and breathing. Then he took her temperature and decided it was just a fever. He then gave Lucky subcutaneous fluids and a shot of antibiotic - which is what I had asked for in the first place because I failed to provide those for her the night before.

Lucky continued to worsen, moving toward death from a lack of oxygen and a heart that had been racing far above normal for days. We then rushed her back to the first emergency hospital where she was put on oxygen overnight and assisted in whatever way possible. Xrays determined that she now had aspiration pneumonia, perhaps from puking up the liguid in her stomach or from the force feeding. They gave her diuretics to remove the fluid from her lungs but there was no dramatic change. She simply remained alive. They recommended 24 hour oxygen and care in a major Toronto hospital. But this was not feasible so the next morning I took her directly to my vet, who also was set up to provide oxygen for sick animals. On the way there I thought Lucky was dying. She was just a stretched out, limp rag. When we arrived the doctor said he didn't want to give her oxygen because she was not blue - which is a symptom of a dying cat. He took her into immediate emergency care as she teetered on the verge of death. Several hours later, he called me up and said that Lucky's breathing is 90% back to normal. The shot he had given her, and the overnight medication were all starting to work in her favor.

Episode Three: Hypothermia and kidney damage

It's important to note that Lucky had eaten very little for almost a week. Close to nothing, in fact. Still, she recovered and the doctor let her go home on Saturday, one week ago. Before he released her, he gave her a pill, an an antibiotic called "Baytril." From that point onward, Lucky went downhill again. She drank constantly and later that night vomitted large amounts of green bile from her stomach. I had asked the doctor to be on call for me in case of an emergency and so we talked about this latest terrifying development. He didn't know how bad Lucky was and we agreed to wait until Monday morning. A mistake.

Monday morning Lucky was hypothermic and nearly lifeless. She had no food in her system and her kidneys were failing and her body temperature had dropped from lack of food and strength. The vet and staff didn't look me in the eye; their body language told me that they thought she was going to die - a suspicion they later confirmed. They immediately heated her up and finally did a barium swallow - forcing fluid into her stomach and taking more x-rays to see if some obstruction in her digestive system was making her behave this way. If things weren't already bad enough, imagine a cat on the verge of death being forced to drink white, cruddy chalk-like liquid. Nine lives, for sure. The good news is that no obstruction was found, as this would have required immediate surgery. We were also talking about three ways to get a feeding tube into her stomach - through her neck and pulling her stomach through a hole in her chest. The possibilties of ever greater suffering were stacking up. Her kidneys were also deteriorating, likely from the Baytril antibiotics and lack of food to protect her system from its side effects. Things couldn't have looked any worse.

Getting Better?

It has now been nine days since Lucky's last brush with death and she is sleeping on the couch in my room. Her tests came back normal today. She is no longer considered "sick" in the clinical analysis sense. That means no infection, and her liver and kidneys are fine. She's weak and still isn't eating much, today especially. I can see that she still has some kind of a stomach problem that's keeping her from eating as she would like. But she is at least eating a little bit and that is a change for the better. Best of all, she's still alive.

I am very attached to Lucky and always feared the day when I would have to lose her. But at the age of six she is still a very young cat. She has gone through so much from the start and because of my caring so much for her I've become hopelessly attached. She is smart beyond wonder and when she's healthy, she's strong and athletic and playful. My hope is that I can enjoy her company for as long as possible and hopefully that means at least another ten years or more. This Christmas, I have my present and I'm counting my blessings to have such a wonderful animal to shower with loving affection. We all need someone to love, and my beloved is a cat.

Now What?

Irony of ironies, as I was finishing the last sentence, Lucky began to vomit liquid all over my carpet just as she had done last weekend. She then went over to the water dish and drank lots of water, as she had done last week. But this time she also started eating some dry food. As is almost a daily ritual now, I called the vet because I have his home number. He returned my call at 9:30pm and we talked about this latest development in Lucky's health escapades. This is NOT how I wanted to end my year. But as I watch her grooming (a good sign) and pawing playfully at the newspaper that I put down for her to sit on, I'm hopeful, once again. What an amazing and resiliant creature. She better stick around. I still have some love left to share.

Wish us both luck. And happy holidays to all of you out there. Here's wishing you a year without any form of suffering. Now that would be the best gift of all.


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