Bad drug reaction (feline)
17We said goodbye to one of our cats last Wednesday. It was sad, but it was the most humane thing to do. He had quit eating and his breathing was really bad. I syringe fed him for three weeks, hoping we could get him over whatever it was, but when I didn’t feed him, he didn’t eat. Then, within forty-eight hours, his breathing got worse. I believe he had a growth in his nasal passage and it was pressing on his soft palate. At seventeen, we aren’t going to put him through a lot of tests. There’s the COPD, for instance. He’s not going to get better. That was the real.
Even though we’d had him to the vet multiple times the past few months, there was nothing definitive about the noisy breathing (although we knew he had COPD).
Our vet retired after thirty years and sold the practice to one of the other vets. One of those vets quit because his wife is also a vet and she works at SeaWorld (San Diego) and was transferred. So, another vet was hired.
He saw Opie, this was on my birthday, October 16, a Tuesday. He wanted to try something out for Opie’s COPD - theophylline.
Amazingly, it seemed to help his COPD. But it did nothing for the noisy breathing. Thursday night, he puked up the medicine. And late Thursday night, I couldn’t find him. I looked all over, the house was quiet and I listened. I heard noises in the office. I found him, trying to get behind the safe. I got him, he was acting pretty strangely, but didn’t seem to be in distress. I laid on the sofa and heard him in the dining room. We have a couple of big cat feeders and I saw him trying to go behind the cat feeder that was in a corner. When he couldn’t go around it, he tried going over it.
The next morning he was still having problems. I thought he’d had a stroke and that Friday morning, I called the vet. We took him in, thinking it was time to say goodbye.
It wasn’t. It was a reaction to that medicine. He was given fluids and sent home. Within thirty six hours, he had stopped “circling”. What the vet called it. We had another month with him, which was good, we had a chance to say goodbye (we knew what the outcome would be, I was hoping to have until the end of the month, but it didn’t work out that way).
Anyway, I took a bunch of video of the circling and posted a short one yesterday. It’s really alarming if you don’t know what’s happening.
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Glad you got the respite and the extra time.
Tough ending, of course. It’s always so painful.
You’re a good caretaker, not putting him through a lot of tests. My Mr Whiskers is 17 or maybe 18 now. He’s been acting a little goofy lately and not wanting to be in his usual haunts. But so far he’s kept up his small appetite and is his usual lovey-dovey self.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Looks like it messed with his balance
I am so sorry @lisaviolet. As I have said before, when an animal passes knowing it has been loved and cared for, it passes in peace. They are here to make us better people. And you are, for the care and love you offered.
Be at peace knowing this. But it’s still very hard, I know.
Glad it was just a drug reaction and you got another month with him. Bitter sweet I’d image since you still knew the end is near. Likely this is where I am with Max. You have lost too many cats too close together. Very heartbreaking,
I had a cat with asthma and flovent (primary drug) and albuterol (rescue drug which I only had to use twice) was what we used to help Paige’s breathing (using an areokat as a way to administer the inhaler). I wonder if something like that would have worked with him. Too late now obviously, but I mention it only if another cat has similar issues.
You’re an excellent cat owner/kitty mom! It’s so hard and it sounds like there’s a few of us dealing with sick and dying kitties right now. Oh how I wish they could tell us things! It would make everything better. Sending lots of hugs to you and thank you for the video and info!