Hi everyone,
I am battling with the loss of Mister , my best friend. I am also battling with my own pain surrounding how it happened.

He was only 3 1/2. When I found him he was foaming / drooling. I took him into the vet. He threw up yellow. They gave him blood work. It came back very low white blood cell count, 360 blood sugar which is 3 times the normal amount, no temperature. Then he threw up green. what they did for him was IV flush and antibiotics. Should they have done more? He was only 3 and very healthy. The vet asked me to go home and look for any toxins and not to worry. To this day I have found nothing in my house, and done a lot of research to see if I have missed anything. Also, he is an inside cat.

I realized tonight that the vet said that she was going to give him an x-ray. I never knew the result or if it was ever given because it was towards the end of the day and the next call he was gone. I am so mad at myself for taking the vets word for these things. I feel like if I was more educated I might have been able to save him by asking and demanding more service or answers. I mean I dropped him off at 3:30pm and dead by 7:30 am. Is there anyone out there that is a vet or doctor that can answer these questions for me? Should I go back to the vet and demand an answer? I am very concerned because if I believe that I find incompetence on any level, I will lose control with the knowledge that not only I could have done something but so could they? Does this make sense or am I just crazy to want to even know why. Does it matter why, I mean he is gone and not coming back.

The only part of me that says that i have a responsibilty to my other cat to find out if there were any toxins involved. I am having a very bad day today and any thoughts would help. I just found this article. Dog and Cats owners please read!

http://www.catmom.com/marina/articles/clump.html
Jason

Hi jason,

I am so sorry about mister. I have a multi cat household which includes 2 purebreeds, 1 abyssinian and 1 ocicat. The other 3 are cats I rescued over the years. I always had a multicat household for 27 years so I have seen several thru their life span, and unfortunatly I had a couple who died before their life should have been over. It hits hard when they die at a young age.

I would talk to the vet and try to get some answers. I would find out if there was a possibility that it was feline panleukopenia(cat distemper) even if mister was vaccinated for it. Some household plants are poisionous to cats, then you have the toxins like antifreeze and so on....

Does the maine coon cat have certain problems that are bred into them? I know that the abyssinian has certain health issues to watch for. I learned the hard way. I took my 5 year old abyssinian to the vet for his teeth because abbys tend to have bad teeth. The vet gave him ketamine for anesthetic and Tommy died 3 days later. He never came down from it. I found out later that abbys are very sensitive to that drug, and it should never be used on a abby cat. I know that purebreds have certain faults that can be bred into them. Some can be very serious.

The symptoms mister had were very serious, and your vet can give you some kind of insight as to what it could have been. I would at least try to rule out the possibility of a contagious infection that can be spread to your other cats.

My heart goes out to you.

Kim

Hi Jason,
Did you use any carpet cleaner in the last few days before he died. I almost killed my daughter's kitty Amber. I thought it was safe to use since it said it was for pet soil. But it was not and she had to spend a lot of time in the hospital. The carpet cleaner almost cost Amber her life.Thank God we didn't lose her.

I agree with Kim I would go to the vet to find out more. I would tell her I was so distraught that I did not understand what he had died from. Maybe she has an idea of what was wrong with him. Was the x-ray completed? Since the sugar was high could his pancreas have shut down? Just write down any questions you may have and ask about them all.
Ann

Jason,
I'm not surprised you are frustrated at not knowing how poor Mister died. I would say the vets do owe you a bit more of an explanation & I think you should talk to them. Even though it won't help in bringing Mister back, at least you'd know.
The link you provided to the dangers of cat litter was very interesting. In the last couple of weeks of his life, my Winston was too weak to go outside so he used a cat litter; strangely he kept trying to nibble at the litter, I don't know why. Eventually I had to put newspaper down over the litter so he wouldn't nibble on it (reading yout link I'm glad I did.)
Thinking of you at this difficult time. The death of our furbabies is such a devastating, heartbreaking experience as it is; and to not know the reason why it happened must be so dreadfully upsetting.
Hugs,
Elsie

Jason, I'm very sorry that you lost your Mister.

My Luba (border collie who had just turned 9) died suddenly due to violent illness too. I combed the house, the yard, everwhere to see if she'd been poisoned. The vet had offered an autopsy, but I was too devastated to agree. I just couldn't deal with her being cut up. I did go in to speak to the vet's a few weeks later, and he said that they figured it was an underlying heart condition that had affected her other organs. All tests indicated that way.

As I have another dog, the vet did run some tests on contagious diseases, but she was clear. I THINK she died of a heart attack, but I'll never be 100% sure.

That being said: it's hard to come to peace with our beloved babies' deaths when something like this happens.
I spent MONTHS blaming myself, but ultimately, this does nothing. I hope that you are able to find peace.

Steph

Oh I'm so sorry for your loss Jason.

Personally,I would go back to the vets and find out what they have to say about your cat's death. Maybe they don't know what was wrong.I find veterinary care is often trial and error because unfortunately our beloved pets do not use our words to speak to tell us what is wrong or what happened.


Thank you for the interesting and informative article.Did you use that litter?
Let us know if you found anything out and again I am so saddened to hear of your young baby's passing.I know how hard it is for you right now.

Thank you all of you for writing me and making me feel better about asking my vet. I ahve made a call this morning and left a message. Hopefully she will call me back. Thanks again. I had a very rough morning already.
Jason

Jason,
Keep calling and please let us know what you find out. I am sorry you are having a rough morning, hang in there. Pamela

I am so sorry to hear about your loss. It is especially tough not knowing what happened. I would start by concentrating on the blood sugar levels. What would cause it to be so elevated out of the blue? Just because you have not found any toxic chemicals doesn't mean there are not things in the house toxic to cats. I'm sure there are things in my apartment that would be dangerous to cats if ingested, but I don't know what they are. Certain vegetables are toxic. I read a story or heard a story of a cat who was licking and eating out of a pan of fried onions and it killed him/her. Chocolate can kill dogs. There are all sorts of things that are dangerous to our pets in our homes. Unless you were recklessly careless, which I don't believe you were, try not to beat yourself up. It is unfortunate that it takes tragedies like yours and others to make us more aware of the dangers for our pets. I lost Romeo because I took him to the vet's because his ears were dirty. He was too crazy to examine and he had to be knocked out. Anyway, I came back to pick him up and I got him home, and when I opened his cage, he was dead. I never got to say goodbye, like you and your girlfriend. That is the toughest part for me.

What I learned was a couple things. First, I need to be more assertive in the care my animals receive. If they couldn't knock Romeo out with 2 shots, that should have ended it right there, try again another day. But no, They injected at least twice more. I never even tried to clean his ears myself. I assumed he had ear mites because i never noticed the wax before. I should've tried to handle the situation before going to the vet. I will not allow any of my animals to be knocked out with ketamine, I will pay more for a safer drug and I will not place my animals at risk again. My cat Romeo died so that I could learn these lessons. If I had only known ahead of time he'd still be here today. Whether or not you ever learn the definitive reason for Mister's death, try to learn as much as you can about the dangers in our homes in regard to our pets. Foods, plants, chemicals etc. Hell, even furniture. One of my friends lost the sweetest female Rottweiler because when he was out one night she ate a pillow on the sofa and choked to death on the stuffing.

Best of luck in dealing with losing your baby. It gets easier but not knowing why is probably the toughest. A new kitten or cat would be great one day but only you and your girlfriend will know when the time is right. Romeo died Nov 29th and I bought a new kitten on Feb 5th. He is not a replacement for Romeo, but rather another cat that I would like to join my family. I still think about and very much miss Romeo, but I will admit that a kitten keeps me busy and doesn't allow me to think about Romeo as much. He even visits sometimes but nearly as much as I would like.

Hang in there and keep us informed.

Steve