Happy Ramblings: Not a happy birthday for Guido today :(

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Not a happy birthday for Guido today :(

Guido my Siamese cat's 17th  birthday

It is Guido's 17th birthday today. He is my beautiful Siamese cat. I mentioned how special and clever he is in one of my comment replies here.

Guido has not had a good day today. We noticed something wrong with him a few days ago and then on Friday he didn't want to eat. When I got home from work I noticed him going every few minutes to his litter tray without success. Then he started vomitting. I got very worried and phoned the after-hours vet. The vet met me at the clinic within 20 minutes of me phoning. He thought Guido was just constipated, so treated that and sent us away with some medicine. The vet said to phone him on his cell phone if I was worried any time during the weekend.

At 3.00 am this morning I woke up with Guido sleeping at my side and the bed felt a bit wet. I turned on the light and there were patches of blood on the bed. I panicked and checked Guido over and found that some faeces had burst out through a hole near his bottom. Then I really panicked. I woke mum up for help, then phoned the vet again.

The vet said he could meet me at the clinic first thing in the morning at 6.30 am. When I saw him he said he thought that it was a ruptured perineal hernia and that it would need surgery. He gave Guido some intravenous fluids, antibiotic injection, pain killers and a vitamin B shot, then sent us home. He wasn't able to treat Guido any further as it is Sunday and he had no support staff. Plus he said he didn't really know how to fix the problem.

Guido is being referred to a specialist vet hospital tomorrow. I have to wait until 8.00 am tomorrow to make an appointment for him as they aren't open today. Guido is now not allowed to eat anything after 8.00 tonight, in preparation for his operation. He appears comfortable and is sleeping at the moment, but he has been very clingy with me today, more than usual.

I will keep you updated on how he is getting on by adding to the end of this post.

Updates

  • Guidos's appointment at the vet hospital has been made for 11.30 this morning. He seems a lot brighter this morning and has been begging for food.
  • Guido is staying at the vet hospital for the week on i.v. fluids and food tube with 24 hour nursing care. He is having a series of tests done today. He isn't well enough for exploratory surgery. I am waiting for the specialist to let me know test results this afternoon and she will let me know if anything can be done to help him.
Very Sad News

Guido had to be put down this evening. He had multiple organ failure and extensive cancer throughout his body. He was such a brave little cat. I am going to miss him so much.

8 comments:

  1. Oh! That´s terrible! I hope he is going better now!
    I will think about him!!!
    Greetings, Petra

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    1. Hi Petra, Thank you for your kind thoughts. He is brighter and I have managed to get an appointment at the vet hospital for 11.30 this morning.

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  2. Replies
    1. They are keeping him at the vet specialist hospital all this week on i.v. fluids and a food tube. The surgeon said he thinks the rupture was an anal gland abcess. He doesn't think it is connecting to his bowel. He doesn't want to put him under anaesthetic to look further because he wouldn't survive it. He is too ill. he is happy that at this stage the hole has closed and is healing up. He said Guido does have a few perineal hernias as well. He said that this is a red flag to something bigger going on.

      We were then passed on to see an internal medicine specialist to try to figure out what is going on. She felt a tumour on his thyroid gland. Guido has a heart murmur and she thinks his kidneys are failing. She is going to do ultrasounds of his body today and a whole series of blood tests an ECG and an echocardiogram to see if anything can be done. I am waiting for her to phone me with the results.

      I am so upset with the previous vets I have taken Guido to over the past few years for not investigating properly when he started losing weight and looked dehydrated. The specialist said that big sudden weight losses in cats can damage the liver and she is worried about that too.

      I can only hope for the best, but it isn't looking very good at the moment :(

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  3. I'm so sorry Rose, he seemed like such a spunky wee cat xx

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    1. Dear Emma, thank you. The specialist said he was a very perky and bright little cat too. He never gave any signs of giving up.

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  4. I am really really sorry Rose. Sending you big hugs.

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