cat relapse

[anotheranon]

I spoke prematurely. After another 2 days of struggling to force feed Kisia water, we realized that she really needed to see the vet again.

Despite our efforts, she was so dehydrated that they couldn't even take a blood sample, and they referred her to the local emergency vet.

Incredibly, in 10 minutes they discovered the cause of the problem - she has swallowed some sort of string. Fortunately (or not), it's looped around the base of her tongue - it must hurt dreadfully, but prevented her from completely swallowing it. It also explains why she wasn't drinking or grooming herself - she couldn't.

We had to leave her there, where they're sedating her while replinishing her fluids. About midnight they're going to try and pull the string out, if it's not too far down. Failing that they'll have to (shudder) operate.

Needless to say I feel guilty as shit for not taking better care to make sure that every possible bit of string was out of the floor, not having more dump-proof trash cans, etc. She's my little cat, she doesn't deserve all this :(

The vets assured us they've seen this a million times and it is totally routine, but it doesn't make me feel better :(

They'll call us at midnight to tell us whether they'll have to operate or not. Then we pick her up tomorrow morning.

I'm going to go sterilize the basement of anything resembling thread or tape.

Comments

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear that. I'll be thinking good kitty thoughts. My old cat did something similar once -- he found a bit of nylon string that was fraying from my old leg brace which was in a closet (door was closed but I guess the string was sticking out). We only discovered it hours later when he was crying in pain, had a bad tummy and (like electriccat's kitty, a little was sticking out of his butt. We took him to the vet and they were really worried about it because since it was nylon, it could have cut him badly. In the end, he was okay -- they had to keep him for a few days, gave him pain killers and large doses of castor oil to lubricate his digestive system -- and wait for him to expel it himself. It was really scary. Luckily he was fine. Don't feel guilty -- cats have an amazing way of finding things they're not supposed to. You can only do your best to stop them from being so stupid.