Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

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Shellyrose
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Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by Shellyrose »

I am still in shock and trying to figure out what happened. We had a 4 yr old cat that was our baby and was completely healthy to our knowledge. Wednesday night my daughter mentioned the cat had a little bit of diarrhea. The cat appeared to be ok so we figured we’d keep an eye on it. The next day we left for the morning and came home around lunch to find our cat limp on the floor. Her nose was very cold and she could barely move. We immediately rushed her to the vet. The vet confirmed that she was critical and started warming her up, IV, oxygen, etc. Her body temp was only 91 when we arrived, pupils dilated, labored breathing. The vet told us he would run tests once he got her more stable. That never happened as our cat died about an hour later. They did run a quick X-ray and the vet mentioned her heart appeared a bit small. So I’m left with an extremely sudden death of our baby and no real answer as to why. We couldn’t find anything around our home that would be a danger. She was 100% indoor. Any thoughts???
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Ruth B
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by Ruth B »

I am so sorry for you, that really must have been the worst type of shock to get.

Unfortunately there could be a number of possible explanations and only something like a post mortem would have any chance of giving a real answer. i would probably guess as some type of congenital heart problem as the x ray showed the heart was small but it is just guess work.

The only other possibility is if she had had a reaction to something you have recently brought into the house, any new house plants, cut flowers, even cleaning solutions might cause an allergic reaction that could have killed her.

Even if you did decide to have a post mortem done it may not be conclusive. What ever you do decide and what ever you find out please don't beat yourself up about it. You did your best for her and gave her a lifetime of happiness, even if her lifetime was shorter than you would have liked.
alanc
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by alanc »

Very sad to read of your loss. Unfortunately, sudden death of an apparently healthy cat does sometimes happen. 3 years ago, my 5yr old Badger was apparently a healthy cat on Monday but was dead due to cancer on Thursday. He showed very few symptoms, except being lethargic on Tuesday. When I took him in to the vets that day, they were very unsure about what, if anything, was wrong and only decided to scan him at the last minute.
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Jan
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by Jan »

Very sorry to learn your sad news. My mother woke up one morning to find her 7 year old cat, Sofie, dead on the landing floor. She had no idea what or how this had happened ... I remember her crying on the phone when she called to tell me.

But this sadness led to a life being saved. A little black kitty was under the sentence of death by the owners of his mother because he had developed hypothermia - possibly the start of Failing Kitten Syndrome. The little boy was half a kg underweight when Mum took him on. 15+ years later he is still going strong and has lived with us for the last 5 years. It is odd to think that had Sofie lived, Blackie would not..
Shellyrose
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by Shellyrose »

Thanks guys! I’m slowly getting over the shock. It’s definitely hard not getting my daily kitty snuggles. I’m sure I’ll go to the shelter and rescue a new kitten soon.
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lilynmitz
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by lilynmitz »

Sudden and premature deaths are always a terrible shock. I lost one to liver cancer at age 7. He looked so healthy the vet wouldn't believe me when I said I thought there was something wrong, and he was climbing trees the day he died. It was only the post mortem that found the cancer.

I lost another at just under 4 yrs old to spinal embollism, and another albeit 12 years old, very suddenly to cancer. In both cases one day they were a bit under the weather, then very suddenly they're critical.

In all cases they were being monitored/treated by the vet, but they seemed pretty good in themselves so no indicators of their sudden deterioration.

I consider myself a really diligent (bordering on paranoid) cat owner, but cats are programmed to hide illness and weakness as it makes them vulnerable to predators in the wild, so by the time we've picked up that they're unwell, things have got pretty bad.

Bizarrely the cat that outlived them all was probably the sickest cat I've ever owned, she collected medical conditions as a hobby for the 8 years I had her, had numerous operations, and was on 8 medications a day by the time her little heart finally gave out at age 17. She was a tiny wee scrap of a thing, but wasn't giving up on life without a fight.

We all expect, and hope, that our pusscats will be with us for a long, long life, but none of us comes with a guarantee, just like humans. The most important thing I've learned is to focus on the good years they had with you before that awful final day. That's what really counts. We do our best out of love and determination, but there are some that just get away from us.
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by Voskhod_02 »

The reason why your sickly cat outlived the others might actually be BECAUSE she was sickly ; this way, you could easily notice her health issues and take care of it, while a stronger cat would hide it for a while and only show it because it's too late.

Anyways, did the cats that died suddenly go out? Sadly, I've ran into some issues - several times - with cats being poisoned by mentally sick people doing it for "fun" ; there was one in the village I grew up in, and when we found out about it, the guy had a "tally list" of over 20 cats, and was left alone by the police because he was mentally handicapped. They wouldn't even send him to a psychiatrical clinic because he was "not ill enough"...

Fortunately, he was taken in by his older sister in the local city before he could keep doing this or trying on a kid or something.
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lilynmitz
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Re: Our seemingly healthy cat dies suddenly. Still trying to figure out what happened!?

Post by lilynmitz »

Sorry to hear about the poisonings in your area. Only one of mine looked like he might have ingested a toxin but the vet did a PM and didn’t think that was the case.
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