Closure – When he was diagnosed with worms, the vet missed that he also had urinary crystals forming, likely from being stressed. The change in behavior was attributed to the worms, and we didn’t know until it was too late.

A lot of things went wrong, obviously.

We’ll never know if a young male cat could have survived through the jaundice, after an unblocking surgery, with bloodwork showing levels 5x too high and not an ounce of energy left in him.

The grieving has been difficult through the sense of guilt for not having been able to figure things out in time. I don’t believe in ghosts, but regular activities trigger memories of when he’d join in or watch… which is like a ghost, but the memories bring smiles too.

He touched our lives in such a meaningful way that he’ll never be far from our thoughts, still bringing those smiles.

Sorry for the triple response, more information. He was given warm wet food after surgery and didn’t touch it. He hadn’t eaten for 3 days prior, and hadn’t been eating much since he started showing what we thought was worm related behavior, or about 2 weeks before that.

Would it be normal to see jaundice appear in an already exhausted cat AFTER surgery, if likely hepatic lipidosis was not treated immediately by feeding him nutrients through a tube? It all seems to have progressed so quickly.

He was never given a feeding tube, and in hindsight, I don’t see how he could have been expected to take a bite and swallow, he was too weak.

The jaundice though, it was entirely absent pre-surgery and extreme 12 hours later. I can’t help but feel it was not a sign of the end but a sign of hurry up and do…. ??

About hepatic lipidosis, he was a fit 2.5-year-old cat that passed away at 12.8 lbs and had been exactly 13 lbs a month earlier when he was given worm medication.

He was solid, lean and strong in appearance, like most young cats. He was a long-haired male cat often called a Tuxedo, if breed matters.

I wouldn’t describe him as anorexic, though he had stopped eating as much 3 weeks prior, and stopped eating at all 3 days prior. He didn’t have kidney stones, but it was enlarged at the time of his blockage surgery.

He also had crystals in his bladder. She showed me a picture of it opened up with pink colored crystals, which seemed to have worried her more than anything else.

He did pee afterward, and the color was good, but it got dark a day later when jaundice set in.

I’m not sure what else might give you a clearer image, but I can find out, I feel like he still had hope. Also, she wanted to know what specific food brand we had been giving him because he was the 4th complete blockage that week, which is a lot in her practice.

Thanks for your time, I’ll try to keep it shorter.

Yes, we loved him and his brother dearly from the day we found them in our barn, a couple of weeks old at best. His feral mom didn’t return, we watched with remote cameras. After bottle feeding him and weaning him to soft food, we got him dewormed, neutered etc. He seemed happy and normal in every way, clean bill of health.

– The jaundice first appeared 24 hours after surgery to unblock him, and he’s never had it before.

– The vet said the surgery was too urgent to wait for tests, and after surgery said testing was pointless until he was ready to leave. She ended up wanting it on day two when he got jaundice, so it did feel a bit irregular.

That’s why I want to know more about what the jaundice meant. We really thought the jaundice and other signals + a bad test result was what the vet needed to know he was not going to recover.

Was that normal with meds? Post surgery? After not having eaten much in a few days?… Or was it the terrible sign we thought it was? It’s so emotional to experience.

We weren’t being told what we SHOULD do, but were asked to make a decision anyway. It’s so hard to do what’s best for him at that moment, especially with how things happened.

We had to leave either way, the hospital was closing. Leaving him there alone for the night, in that condition, felt wrong. Bringing him home for the night felt like it might just make him suffer more. The IV couldn’t come with us she said, it’s illegal, but she would leave the catheter in if that’s what we choose.

It was a “decide now” moment… and then he rolled to his side with his tongue hanging out, exhausted. It’s truly heartbreaking.

We live in a rural community and the only licensed vet is over an hour away. The only local cat care is from a local donation based feral adoption service, run by a woman and a Facebook group of like-minded people, but without a full time vet.

This happens strictly on donations to have a vet visit regularly. Resources are always stretched. Spending lots on one cat means little is available for others. I get that, but we were willing to pay.

What we did is what people usually do at that point, she said, but we don’t care about that, we wanted him to live. Did we do the right thing? It’s too late to help him, but an answer may help another cat in the future.

As you said, premature end of life for avoidable reasons is such a needless loss.

I did call the hospital to ask about the jaundice afterward, what it meant, and was told it was his organs failing and cells breaking down. Again, not technically wrong, but of no help to a non-vet to decide if it’s time.

I can answer any specific questions you might have.

Thanks again.