Coping With Calicivirus

A normal, healthy cat. Later at the vet X-rays showed she had a healthy stomach, liver, and kidneys. Five years old. Spunky, alert, never been sick.

It stated with noticing she was lying out of the way, behind furniture. I would move her and pet her, but she would go back there later. Two days later she seemed to have stopped eating and drinking. I fixed her an area in the cooler bedroom and she stayed there.

I thought it was the heat. Over the holiday weekend I began feeding her water with an eye dropper and baby food with a small spoon. She took it all, with some persuading, once we got the hang of it. But she didn’t get better.

Monday the vet said she had pneumonia. They gave her oxygen and a very strong antibiotic and recommended I put her in their hospital for a week or two. Or take her to a 24-hour care facility.

I thought, with the antibiotic, she was very weak and needed care I could give her. I took her home, preparing to set up an area in a closet where I could keep a steaming pot near her to break up the congestion and continue to care for her til she got well. But after we had only been home 10 minutes, she suddenly choked and died. I tried to put my fingers down her throat to remove the blockage, but my fingers were too big. And there was no time.

The vet had shown me X-rays and talked in medical terms I didn’t understand. I wish she had simply just said, “look, I’ve seen this before, and your cat could be dead in an hour if she isn’t hospitalized immediately.” Then I would have been able to ask specific questions in terms I would have understood.

If you have an emergency ask the vet hospital before you go there if they have overnight facilities where sick cats are not left alone in the building overnight. I would have left my cat there if they had had that. The vet did recommend to me I leave her there, so I took that to mean she could stay at home that night while I took care of her, and then I could reevaluate it all the next day after the antibiotic had had time to begin to act.

My cat had never been sick. She was totally alert til the moment she died. And she died so fast there was nothing I could do. Now I think about all the things I could have done that would have resulted in her maybe living through it. And there were several decision points where more knowledge would have saved her life. I had no idea how sick she was til the end. She had lost a lot of weight fast. And she wasn’t eating on her own and was just getting weaker. That’s all I knew.

I had looked online first and got the idea it was probably heat prostration. But it wasn’t. I nursed her all weekend but it didn’t save her, except the doctor said she was well hydrated when I brought her in.

My poor cat was healthy, loved life, and didn’t want to die. She was a joy to me. I really miss her.