My question is about urinary crystals and cat blockage. I specifically want to know about jaundice after surgery, but also to know if we should have done anything differently, we lost our little sweetheart a few days ago to urinary crystals.
Details: 4 weeks ago our little fellow, a 2-year-old neutered male, got worms. We brought him to the vet and, with medicine, successfully treated them. They stressed him, and he didn’t want to eat much, but the vet said this was normal. He seemed to get better, but a week ago started acting stressed again, not eating much, drinking very little, but still eating and drinking. Seeing his pee was not possible due to having 2 other cats (and not knowing what urinary crystals are, much less know what to look for)
We called the vet Friday morning, they told us he would probably need another dose of worm medicine, and scheduled an appointment for the following Monday. Keep in mind we had never heard of urinary crystals before, we thought he had worms again.
On Saturday evening, it became clear it was more than worms. He was lethargic, not going potty at all, and just wanting to lay down and close his eyes. We called the vet clinic which was closed, several other numbers for local cat places (adoption, care, etc) and could not get him seen but got the same phone diagnosis at every step, “probably a stomach tumor”.
It was 5pm Sunday before we got lucky, found an animal hospital 2 hours drive away, got a hold of an actual vet through their emergency number, and she agreed to open the hospital late on a Sunday and see him immediately for $1000. We got there at 7pm and by 7:15 he was in surgery to unblock him. She immediately knew what was wrong. His temp was already low, he was very weak and barely moving but alive.
The next morning, we found out he survived the surgery and was recovering with a catheter and IV fluids. The plan was to keep him in the hospital for 3 days and to let him come home if his pee was clear and his blood work for liver function was acceptable.
We got a phone call early on the second day telling us he was occasionally moving in his cage but wasn’t eating or drinking. She said he seemed depressed, and we could visit at 4pm to see if it perked up his spirits. It was the earliest time they could let us visit so we took it.
On our drive to see him, the hospital called us and said he wasn’t doing well. They asked if we wanted the blood work done immediately instead of on day 3 and told us he had become extremely jaundiced. During our visit he could only manage a couple of steps, so we held him, he was clearly exhausted and under the effect of pain medicine.
The hospital had taken the blood after the call and said his sugars were 3 times normal and other things “5 times normal”, and he was a deep greenish yellow in color around his ears. They brought him warm food but he was not interested. They explained organ failure and said his lungs would fail eventually, but he was breathing well.
In seeing us did perk him up a little, he focused on us, but he quickly faded again, preferring to lay down with his tongue out after 20 minutes. We didn’t want him to suffer and linger with no hope of recovering, and he was heartbreakingly euthanized at that point.
Again, I didn’t know anything about crystals before he went into surgery, and I have questions in case his brother, or any cat, is in that situation.
My questions are….
– Was the jaundice a terrible sign or could it have been from the IV fluid, exhaustion, surgery and lack of eating? IE was it normal after surgery, or recoverable?
– Given what I’ve described, should we have waited another day? Could it have been just needing more time to recover? Or is the jaundice and blood work at that point enough to know he’s fought all he can?
We just want to know more. We’re still in shock and miss him terribly, but we felt alone in making decisions, the hospital clearly didn’t want to influence our decision either way. We’re just not sure now that 24 hrs recovery was enough to make a decision, or how serious jaundice is when he didn’t have it pre-surgery/IV.
Any advice appreciated, we found this site via a YouTube video on urinary crystals. Thanks.
P.S. We aren’t second guessing or wanting to hear we did the right thing, it’s too late to help him, but we want to know more in case it helps another cat.
Also, the hospital took a deposit from us when we agreed to the $1000 fee, and said they would accept payments since there was no way to forsee this type of thing. They did seem caring and knowledgeable, but clinical, and would offer no advice on euthanizing or not. We felt alone with that specific decision…. and in hindsight aren’t even sure it needed to be made yet… or did it?
Hello, I’m sorry to hear about your cat. It sounds like there are multiple issues here and I don’t know how they are related. I don’t expect the crystals caused the jaundice. Most of the time I see the crystals because of poor diet or stress. Stress can be many many things. I suspect this was either a cat with underlying conditions like FeLV fiv or fip. Also I suspect the jaundice was either hepatic lipidosis or parasites. You sound like you really love your cat but never had a vet who was invested in your cats care. It is… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »