Older Cat in Poor Health
Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:46 am
Hello, new to this forum so bear with me. 
I have a 16 1/2 year old spayed calico who just recently has gone downhill. About two weeks ago I took her to the vet after I noticed lethargy and lack of eating -- the day I made the appointment I also noticed constipation as she was unable to produce a BM and I saw her straining to do so.
The vet confirmed constipation and also discovered a mass or swelling in her anal gland. He did a full workup of labs and found all of them to be normal and it was his opinion that the mass was an infection and not cancerous. He put her on fluids and antibiotics and kept her for two days to give her two enemas to clean out the large amount of hard stool.
When she came home, she was wobbly on her back legs and still lethargic and not eating. Not a surprise given what she'd been through. The day after she came home I left on a planned vacation and left her in the care of my mother. After two days of her still not really eating or moving much I advised Mom to take her back to the vet, who gave her more fluids and instructed my mother on how to force feed her with a syringe until she had some nutrients in her to get some energy. This worked marginally.
I returned home a few days ago -- a full week after her initial vet visit -- and she is still very weak and lethargic. She's not eating much at all - a few bites at most -- and she is still extremely wobbly on her back legs. It almost seems like partial paralysis. She can walk but her right foot/leg seems to not work right and she will stumble a lot when she walks. Her tail also seems to no longer be able to function normally - it just "hangs" there limply. She does have feeling in her feet and will pull away if I try to mess with them. They are warm but her tail feels colder than I think it should. She does not appear to be in pain. She's losing weight and is down to skin and bones and doesn't seem interested in anything but sleeping on one blanket or another. I have seen her urinate but I have yet to catch her having a BM - which makes me worry she's just going to get constipated again.
We're going back to the vet in a few days for a follow up but I wonder if anyone has had an older cat with this type of problem. I'm beginning to think I'm just "prolonging the inevitable" and I'm not willing to just let her waste away in the hopes that she "might" get better. Any advice would be appreciated.
I have a 16 1/2 year old spayed calico who just recently has gone downhill. About two weeks ago I took her to the vet after I noticed lethargy and lack of eating -- the day I made the appointment I also noticed constipation as she was unable to produce a BM and I saw her straining to do so.
The vet confirmed constipation and also discovered a mass or swelling in her anal gland. He did a full workup of labs and found all of them to be normal and it was his opinion that the mass was an infection and not cancerous. He put her on fluids and antibiotics and kept her for two days to give her two enemas to clean out the large amount of hard stool.
When she came home, she was wobbly on her back legs and still lethargic and not eating. Not a surprise given what she'd been through. The day after she came home I left on a planned vacation and left her in the care of my mother. After two days of her still not really eating or moving much I advised Mom to take her back to the vet, who gave her more fluids and instructed my mother on how to force feed her with a syringe until she had some nutrients in her to get some energy. This worked marginally.
I returned home a few days ago -- a full week after her initial vet visit -- and she is still very weak and lethargic. She's not eating much at all - a few bites at most -- and she is still extremely wobbly on her back legs. It almost seems like partial paralysis. She can walk but her right foot/leg seems to not work right and she will stumble a lot when she walks. Her tail also seems to no longer be able to function normally - it just "hangs" there limply. She does have feeling in her feet and will pull away if I try to mess with them. They are warm but her tail feels colder than I think it should. She does not appear to be in pain. She's losing weight and is down to skin and bones and doesn't seem interested in anything but sleeping on one blanket or another. I have seen her urinate but I have yet to catch her having a BM - which makes me worry she's just going to get constipated again.
We're going back to the vet in a few days for a follow up but I wonder if anyone has had an older cat with this type of problem. I'm beginning to think I'm just "prolonging the inevitable" and I'm not willing to just let her waste away in the hopes that she "might" get better. Any advice would be appreciated.
