14 year old cat just suddenly died... lots of blood. Any ideas?

[kitkat92]

Hi everyone
I've just witnessed a very traumatic death. My lovely 14 year old cat Trinity was just eating her food as usual, when I came back in the room she was on the floor violently convulsing and had blood coming out of her nose. I picked her up and put her onto her bed where she carried on convulsing with lots of blood coming out of her nose and mouth, and within minutes while I was on the phone looking up the nearest emergency vet, she had died.
She had no health problems that I know of, and she seemed absolutely fine beforehand. She had seemed like an "older" cat with her vision, hearing, smell and even her physique but generally healthy and VERY happy.
Does anyone have any ideas? I feel like I'd like to know for my own peace of mind, if you will.

Thanks in advance.

RIP Trinity

[Ruth B]

I am so sorry for you, to lose a pet cat at any point is heartbreaking, but to lose one like that must have been doubly so.

While the only way to really know what had happened would be to have an autopsy done my guess would be that something had happened to start a bleed in the oesophagus or respiratory tract, while this might have been caused by eating something that caused a wound it can happen without any warning or outside cause. I know this because my Father had it happen. He wasn't feeling well after eating his tea late afternoon, so he went to lie down for a bit, and then about bed time, he felt like he needed to throw up and went into the bathroom. He threw up blood everywhere. My Mother had been a nurse, she had worked in theatre and the maternity wards, so she wasn't unaccustomed to a bit of blood, she said it looked like a blood bath in there (there were carpet tiles in the bathroom, they had to come up afterwards, it had soaked through them, through the underlay and stained the floorboards there was that much). When they ambulance crew arrived they could not believe that someone could lose that much blood and still be alive, they couldn't even get an IV drip into him his veins had collapsed that much. The blood count later said he had lost about two thirds of his blood. Fortunately he survived, a tear had occurred in is oesophagus filling his stomach and throat with blood. Its rare and the doctors don't know why it happens, he ended up having surgery to put a band across it to stop it happening again. If the ambulance hadn't got there with in minutes, and they had spent more time trying to get the drip into him instead of just getting him to hospital as fast as they could, his outcome could have been the same as your cat's.

Unfortunately if it was something like that, it was unlikely that anything could have been done, a cat doesn't have as much blood to lose, and even if you had got her to an emergency vet while she was still alive, blood transfusions for cats are far harder to come by. I really believe that there was nothing you did that caused it and nothing you could have done more than you did when it happened. It is just one of those tragedies that can occur and I'm sorry you had to go through it.

[Mollycat]

So, so sorry for your loss in such a traumatic way.

I wouldn't really care to speculate, clearly Trinity must have had some kind of internal bleed and some kind of fit. Only an autopsy might (or might not) explain and as much as we need answers when something awful like this happens in the end it can't bring her back. I wouldn't think it would give you anything to do differently in future or warn other owners about either, it doesn't sound very likely.

I hope in hindsight the speed at which it all happened will give you some comfort that Trinity didn't suffer and really was just enjoying her food and didn't know any more than that before her little light went out.

[kitkat92]

Thank you both very much for the replies, I appreciate your insight.
It is true, no amount of guesswork will bring me any peace or definitive answers. I suppose I just needed to hear she hadn't suffered too much, not to mention I typed out this post within an hour of her passing away when I was in shock.
After doing a bit of reading on seizures in cats and seeing footage of generalised seizures of cats who survived, I recognised every second of it. I'm glad this happened indoors, that she was happily eating her favourite food and that it was over quickly. She had a very happy life with people who adored her and always will. She was the most gentle, delicately affectionate cat I've ever had the pleasure of knowing and I will miss her forever. She will live on in a hazel tree sapling that is about to be planted in our garden.

Sorry for the rambling.

Thank you again for your time.

[Mollycat]

Not rambling at all and don't be shy, although your girl is no longer with us please do share tails of happy memories here if you want to and stick around by all means, if you want to and definitely if it's helpful. People who aren't quite so cat people sometimes struggle to understand us in our grief, here we can be ourselves.

[Ruth B]

You lost a family member very suddenly and in a rather traumatic way, its no wonder you are in shock. Many people who don't have pets don't fully realise how much they become part of your life and how much it does hurt to lose one. Here we understand, and we are always willing to listen to stories about each others pets, its not much, but we are willing to listen if you feel the need to talk and never complain about someone rambling on about their beloved cat, particularly if they are grieving for them. It's entirely your choice of course, but remember we are here if you need to talk.