Our cat Cecily is sick.
I diagnosed her with diabetes a couple weeks ago, got her started on insulin (she was already on the proper food, Purina DM), she started doing better — less inappropriate urination, perkier, more playful, chirping, talking A LOT. Gad, that cat has a mouth! Mrrrr, mrrr, maaaaa. That deep Tonk voice, melodious to those who know and love them.
Tuesday night she crashed with neurologic symptoms (primarily ataxia). We got her to the emergency clinic and on fluids with dextrose — she’d gotten hypoglycemic, and oral Karo syrup and force feeding wasn’t cutting it.
Some cats are transiently diabetic, where they need insulin only a short period of time — I was hoping that was the case.
Then her red blood cell count came back and she was severely anemic (mind you, completely normal two weeks ago when first diagnosed). It’s a regenerative anemia, which means her bone marrow is pumping out red blood cells, but the question is, where are they going? She’s had two transfusions so far (and is, by the way, cat blood group A).
Her ultrasound was normal except for her liver (on aspirate hepatic lipidosis, fatty liver disease, not unexpected since her appetite was off since hospitalization); no signs of gastrointestinal bleeding; negative so far for blood parasites (highly unlikely anyway, she’s never had a flea in her life)….that leaves immune mediated destruction.
And the next question is, what prompted that immmune response? We don’t know yet. Cancer is a big cause but so far we’ve found no sign of it. She’s not an old cat, but that’s no protection against cancer — I remember a 2 year old Pom I diagnosed with lymphoma. The internist and critical care docs don’t know.
We’re at the point of hearing hoofbeats and looking for zebras, not horses.
As you can imagine the knitting’s not gone well this week. At least I’ve worked out some and done my tri training.
I keep beating myself up over what’s going on, which isn’t logical, because everyone’s stumped, but I still blame myself.