It is funny that this thread should pop up right now. God sure does work in funny ways. ;)
One of my kitties went lame on Friday morning, and we had him put down Saturday night. Two trips to the emergency vet clinic in 24 hours (about 400 total miles), $1100 in tests ........ the two vets we saw both concurred that he had thrown a blood clot and it lodged and then continued to build in the blood vessels that feed the hind legs. It broke my heart to see my little baby broken. His little leggers didn't work anymore. :( And the left one hurt him pretty bad, he would cry out depending on how it was touched or moved. I would pick him up and carry him oh-so-carefully anywhere and everywhere we went. And I held him in my arms in the car all the way down both times, and all the way back that first night when we brought him back home.
What was so hard was having so little time to say good-bye. We've lost 3 before this (since 2004) where we had no warning at all, one minute everything was perfect and the next minute they were gone. So to have the 24 hrs of him being so desperately sick and be able to snuggle with him and love him, and then to have the couple hours at the clinic to say good-bye, was so special. I know in my heart that he knew he was very sick and that was why I was soooo sad. No matter whether my Mom or I was holding him, he would pull himself toward the other one so he could snuggle between us both. <God I am just sobbing right now> :(
It is the first time that I do not regret a kitty's death in that I know it was the best thing for him and he is not hurting anymore. I know in my heart he does not resent being out of his physical body, and I do feel in my heart that he is still alive spiritually.
But I regret it so very much for me. I miss my baby. I miss holding him. I miss burying my face in his tummy and inhaling deeply and feeling that warmth and softness and his distinct smell. (which in my opinion is a nice smell; kitties aren't stinky) I miss, when he was paralyzed, I miss holding him and how he would cling to me so tightly with his front paws. I know he was scared, but it was also a little bit of holding on to me, his Mama. The last time he was sprawled across my chest and tummy, I was reclined back on a sofa at the clinic, and he spread his 'arms' wide and dug his claws in and buried his little head firmly under my chin. And he just laid there on me, so close, heart to heart. Ohhhhhhh, it was heaven..........
I wanted to have a couple of more days to spoil him and tell him a zillion more times that I loved him, but the vet said that if the blood clot moved a bit and some of the oxygen-starved tissues or nerves became re-perfused, it would be God-awful pain. I did not want my selfishness and sadness to hurt him worse. It was a risk I just couldn't take. And I couldn't just give him narcotics "just in case," if he was tripped out then it was completely pointless for him too, he would get nothing out of our last little bit of time together. It would have been entirely selfish to keep him alive, only prolonging his frustration and pain and suffering. So really the right choice was to get him out of that broken body ASAP.
I am so sad that I did not bring him home that second night. I really did not think I was taking him for his last car ride that second trip. I really didn't think that was it. It was so hard to watch him go from healthy, bouncy, sassy and happy, to direly ill with no possible treatment, in literally a matter of minutes.
For those who are wondering, he had underlying heart disease. When he was a tiny kitten, he was riddled with major infestations of many kinds of worms. It was one of the most serious infestations our vet had seen and still had the kitty be okay. (He was a stray, and that's the condition he was in when we plucked him from our neighbor's screen door) He needed 3 worm pills and he puked and pooped piles and piles of the things. Oh, the poor little guy ..... anyway our vet warned us that the worms had likely chewed through some of his internal organs, including his lungs and heart, and that his lungs and heart would be pretty scarred up. We saw evidence of this throughout his life, he was never able to play full-force like other kitties, he would start panting very quickly. All of our other kitties, I don't know that I've seen then pant more than once in their whole lives??? This guy, it took so little. So we knew that his heart/lungs had some sort of deficiency. We always figured that would be what killed him but we didn't think it would be this way; we figured he would die in his sleep from a heart attack or something like that.
We also didn't know about giving kitties aspirin for cardiac health. Kitties can be given ordinary aspirin to reduce the stickiness of the platelets in their blood, so they do not form blood clots so easily. This obviously carries a bleeding risk. But if you know your kitty has heart disease (for instance, I have a kitty with congenital heart disease; the wall between the two halves of her heart is too thick, which causes blood to not flow smoothly; that turbulent flow is where clots can easily form) then aspirin may be a viable preventative treatment for your baby. Please ask your vet about it. The dose is only 25 mg per kg of body weight, administered 2x/week. The anti-sticky effect on the platelets of the aspirin lasts for 3-5 days in cats, so they don't need it every day.
I have a big, fat 19 lb. cat so he will be going on about 215 mg aspirin 2x/week. His little sister (with the congenital heart problem) is about 12 lbs. so she is going on about 135 mg aspirin 2x/week. Their other brother lives with my Mom, and she is starting him on aspirin this week too. They have another sister whom we lost suddenly in surgery in 2004, we suspected a blood clot at the time, but now we realize that it was very likely the same heart disease that Maisy has, which means that this whole litter is at high risk for heart problems. Now that we can connect the dots, we can do something about it.
So losing our little Inkster has hopefully saved or lengthened the lives of our other kitties. And I am posting about this now so that maybe he can save even more babies' lives. Cardiomyopathy (heart disease) in cats is grossly underdiagnosed because kitties can't tell us "gee, I'm feeling a little short of breath" or "I feel oddly not well today." And it doesn't always present with a murmur. Neither Dolly (who died in surgery) nor Inky had a murmur. Maisy, however, does have a murmur, and that's how she ended up getting her cardiac ultrasound where we found her thickened septum. (Yes, a kitty cardiac ultrasound. LOL) I can't afford to get her ultrasounds every 18 months (Uncle Mastercard dumped my ass a couple of years ago!) but a $2 bottle of aspirin is another story entirely!
Always talk to your vet before starting any meds, treatments, diets or changes with your pet. Always!!! We checked with our vet already and she said our giving aspirin to these 3 is fine. But the point is we checked. There can be other health issues where aspirin would be a bad idea, so PLEASE, CHECK WITH YOUR VET FIRST.
Thank you for letting me share. :)
Bailey
