Kidney failure can begin without much warning as we discovered on the evening of January 9, 2007. By 5:00 a.m. on the 10th, I knew there was something terribly wrong with our 11 year-old blue point Siamese, Minnie. She was visiting the litter box about every 10 minutes. I brought some water to her which she eagerly drank up, but still back to the litter box. I got my husband up and told him he would need to call the vet and get her in to see someone as quickly as he could. She normally only weighs 6 lbs, so getting dehydrated happens so quickly.
I went off to work hoping for the best; maybe she just had a urinary infection. Then they could just give her some antibiotics and fluids and she could come home at the end of the day. This was my husband's favorite cat and to top it all off, it was his birthday.
The heart wrenching drama unfolds and we are caught up with a decision to do everything we could or let nature take its course. After a day at the vets and the prognosis was not good, we asked what was the best we could do for her. Our vet told us her best chance to come out of this was to go to the all night emergency care so they could monitor her hourly. This way Minnie could be given fluids and drugs as she needed them. Because of the easy-going nature of Minnie, she used to go to cat shows and liked people, so the stress of the environment would not be an issue. I have other cats that would not do well in that environment for very long. So, we took her to the all night care and my husband would pick her up in the morning and take her back to our vet's for the day. She would not eat for any of them, so we picked up some baby food and fed her on morning and night pickups. The last time we seen her alive was on the evening of the 12th. We had been really hopeful, as we had a fair amount of time with her in the emergency patient room waiting for the check over and transfer. We had fed her and let her down on the floor, she walked back and forth between us, so we could pet her. Minnie purred and purred that night for us, maybe just letting us know everything will be okay. That was a good last memory for us. She died the next day, went into cardiac arrest, they gave her CPR and drugs and still could not keep her alive.
Would I do this again? The answer to that is, maybe. Number one, it would depend on the temperament of the cat. The 2 cats I have now, well one would be okay for a day, maybe into the next day, but the other one I think, would be totally terrified and that would definitely affected any possibility of recovery.
As, for what I know now, I think I would have taken Minnie home on the 12th and would have let her die in my arms.
This is what I learned. They have to have fluids and they eventually need to start eating, but those two things lower their internal temperature, which causes stress on the kidneys. They can administer fluids and drugs, but at some point they either improve or don't make it. Going back over all of the doctor's comments on the paperwork I received over the 4 days, there were some interesting facts. Today, if I were ever to face a crisis like that again, I would pay very close attention to the numbers.
At the time Minnie arrived at our vet, she now weighed 4 lbs 8 oz. Not sure what her vitals were, but the emergency recorded her numbers on the 10th as the following: temp. 98.7, pulse 190, respiration rate 36, weight 4.75 lbs
On the evening of the 11th: temp. 98.4, pulse 232, respiration rate 32, weight 4 lbs 10 oz. The weight was probably up that night as we had brought the baby food in and she had eaten for me.
On the evening of the 12th: temp. 97.6, pulse 200, respiration rate 28, weight 4.5 lbs.
With paying attention to the above knowledge and knowing what the outcome was, if there ever has to be a next time, I will watch the numbers. There was a lot of medical stuff on the records that I did not understand, but the vitals pretty much tell the story.
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