Hi ladies any vets/cat health experts around?

[StrumpersPlunkett]

our young lady is 2.5 years old and appears to have an infection
it is a bad one. her kidneys are enlarged, she is weeing fine but her temp is 39.6 and she has "massive" white blood cell count in her wee. And Huge calcium count one of the measurements was 45 when normal is 13-16 (not sure what that was measuring though)
she is losing weight fast, 200g over the weekend.
she has been on antibiotics since Thursday and she spent Friday on a drip.
Due to the £1500 quote (she isn't insured) we declined the vets offer for her to stay in over the weekend to stay on a drip but she went back in first thing this morning.

SO the reason for my post is that to be honest the vet is starting to draw a blank. the little lovely cat has perked up and has started grooming and purring and fighting the thermometer up her bum, and over the weekend she ventured out to play in the garden with her sister chasing round after daddy long legs.

How can she be perking up if she is actually really v poorly? The vet has started end of life conversations with us but that seems so odd when she appears to be getting better.

Please forgive my massive post. I didn't want to drip feed. If anyone has anything that may help, snippets of info or annecdotes very welcome..Thanks!!!

[StrumpersPlunkett]

hopeful bump

[StrumpersPlunkett]

anyone around this evening?

[kinkytoes]

Cats can bounce back, even from being very poorly. The vet is possibly just preparing you for the worst just in case. Hope kitty continues to eat, drink and improve.

[kinkytoes]

I'm not an expert btw, just owned and known a lot of cats!

[StrumpersPlunkett]

thanks and BTW that counts as an expert!

[cozietoesie]

There are so many possibilities, Strumpers, so I think your vet is the one to call it. Having said that, did the vet start talking about future decisions after you told her (as I assume you did) that she had started showing signs of improvement?

What has she been like this afternoon and early evening? Is she eating/drinking/using her tray OK?

[threedeer]

Vets don't know it all. If she's perked up keep an eye on her. Maybe she just had a massive infection and has fought it off with the antibiotics. Hope so.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

So this evening we have got to the point that the vet has been honest and said he has no clue as to what is wrong. All her blood tests are now normal aside from the v high calcium load. Her kidneys are v big for a small cat.
He has referred us to the local vet hospital to have proper tests with scans. We go tomorrow morning.

[cozietoesie]

Best of luck to her. Let us know what happens.

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Has she been tested for FeLV and FIV?

[StrumpersPlunkett]

no she hasn't I think that is one of the things that we are going to investigate tomorrow.

Thanks for your kindness..

[Lonecatwithkitten]

I would make sure that is on the list.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

well.
today has been interesting. I think that we are close to a diagnosis but the reasons for that diagnosis are still being investigated.

The little lady's left kidney is totally blocked by a stone in the urethra. She has stones in her other kidney but they are smaller.

The blockage is likely to have caused the infection (which has now cleared)

They are giving her medication for the next couple of days to help her pass the stone that is blocking the tube and once a kidney function test is done they would like to do an operation to clear the other kidney of stones.

Then we apparently just have to change her diet so she has more acidic wee that will help dissolve any future stones that form.

She isn't insured and it is going to be a v pricey couple of weeks but I am feeling like if it will fix things then we have to do it!

Thank you so much for all your kindness it has been a scarey time.

[cozietoesie]

I'm pleased they're getting there. What would the prognosis be given that she's such a young cat? Have they shared that or were they too temporarily excited at finding the treatable cause?

[StrumpersPlunkett]

they have labs on site that they had sent blood work to.
If we do nothing the likelyhood is that in the next few weeks one of the stones from the other kidney will be flushed into the ureta and block the other kidney and that would mean game over.
they feel that she may well be one of the one in a million or so cats that has a naturally v high calcium load in her blood and that has caused this which is another reason she said that changing her diet will counter any natural cause of more stones.
Does that make sense?

[cozietoesie]

The first part yes, the second - I'm not so sure. It sounds like a little more elegant way of saying 'We haven't got a clue about the cause but at least we think we can treat the proximate symptoms'.

(Which latter I'm glad about. I don't think you've got to the bottom of it, but if her immediate health can be improved she'll be in better shape for whatever the future might bring.)

Oh - I don't think you stand a snowflake's chance of getting any serious insurance for her now. I'll be happy to stand corrected on that one though.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

I know about the insurance.. we made a decision about no insurance and now we just have to suck it up.. (whether we cover the other pets is still to be debated)

[cozietoesie]

I think I would if they're young enough and healthy enough to get it at a halfway reaonable price. As you've discovered, it's not just RTAs that you have to think about.

[beautifulgirls]

Naturally high calcium is not right - this is nothing I have ever come across in practice. They need to be investigating her calcium levels further and finding out why these levels are like this and addressing it.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

beautiful girls are you a vet? It is so hard because our vet said the same and yet now we are with the experts at the animal referal hospital they seem to be focusing on clearing the tube out of the kidney before we do anything else.
DH and I have today had another conversation about whether we can afford a £3-4,000 operation for them to clear out the kidney she has left (if they deem that worth while)

[cozietoesie]

It's a heck of a lot of money and a very difficult decision. I think it would be easier to decide if they had at least arrived at a definite diagnosis so that you knew what the long term was likely to be - and I don't think they have.

[StrumpersPlunkett]

[actual buckets of tears}
we are going tomorrow to have her put to sleep.

the stone has not cleared from her left kidney and when they have done a detailed scan on both kidney's she has very little use in her good kidney.

seeing her tonight was so sad, she is so high on morphine she looks very drunk when she is walking and she was snuggling on our laps (she has never been a lap cat)

Thanks for all your kindness with my wibbles in recent weeks.

[cozietoesie]

Poor lass. Take care.

[deeplybaffled]

I am so sorry.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Poor cat, I'm so sorry it's come to this.