Ketoacidosis Kitty
Sasha is back from vet. He spent six days being hospitalized, mostly for ketoacidosis, but also a touch of (perhaps, they think) pancreatitis, and a UTI just for fun. As usual, however, he has baffled the standard veterinary care community.
This started on Sunday morning. The night before he was just fine, begging for food and making a pain in the butt of himself. Sunday morning I went to feed the cats and there was no Sasha. This meant he either had to be accidentally locked in the basement or dead. (Trust me; the cat is obsessively and compulsively starving at all times. He runs to the kitchen, claws scrabbling on the linoleum, whenever he hears dishes clank together OR if he hears the oven timer beep.) Finally the cat came blearily meandering down the hall. He refused his food. In fact, he refused his food all day. The only thing we could think of that was causing it was that Doug forgot to give him his insulin for anywhere between two and four days...but still, it was highly unusual behavior for this cat to want to skip meals and opt to sleep instead.
By Sunday night he was very weak and wobbly, had refused to eat all day, and was lying there on the floor, no longer even tracking things with his eyes. So off he went to the Emergency Animal Clinic, where they promptly declared him dehydrated and started an IV. He got transferred the next morning to the regular vet, and they kept up the IV and had to resort to force-feeding him for a few days.
He came home yesterday afternoon, still pretty rickety, but at least they feel comfortable letting him come home. What they don't understand is how a cat can get into this condition seemingly overnight...it seems that he came in dehydrated and in ketoacidosis, and down about two pounds from his last weight check in August. So how did he manage to act so normal for so long and then dive down into this spiral so fast, and take so long to recover? They have no idea.
That's comforting. That means that we can't really do much to prevent it in the future.
This started on Sunday morning. The night before he was just fine, begging for food and making a pain in the butt of himself. Sunday morning I went to feed the cats and there was no Sasha. This meant he either had to be accidentally locked in the basement or dead. (Trust me; the cat is obsessively and compulsively starving at all times. He runs to the kitchen, claws scrabbling on the linoleum, whenever he hears dishes clank together OR if he hears the oven timer beep.) Finally the cat came blearily meandering down the hall. He refused his food. In fact, he refused his food all day. The only thing we could think of that was causing it was that Doug forgot to give him his insulin for anywhere between two and four days...but still, it was highly unusual behavior for this cat to want to skip meals and opt to sleep instead.
By Sunday night he was very weak and wobbly, had refused to eat all day, and was lying there on the floor, no longer even tracking things with his eyes. So off he went to the Emergency Animal Clinic, where they promptly declared him dehydrated and started an IV. He got transferred the next morning to the regular vet, and they kept up the IV and had to resort to force-feeding him for a few days.
He came home yesterday afternoon, still pretty rickety, but at least they feel comfortable letting him come home. What they don't understand is how a cat can get into this condition seemingly overnight...it seems that he came in dehydrated and in ketoacidosis, and down about two pounds from his last weight check in August. So how did he manage to act so normal for so long and then dive down into this spiral so fast, and take so long to recover? They have no idea.
That's comforting. That means that we can't really do much to prevent it in the future.
posted by Kelly at
11:33 AM
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