Weddingbee boards

Hey Gals, 2010 is off to a rough start for me. a Year ago we adopted a tiny orange kitten named Leo. He had it rough as he was living under a dumpster, so when we got him he had an upper respiratory infection and mange. We've had him about 10 months and he's turned into a beautiful, sweet cat, always purring and full of life. This month has been stressful for a lot of reasons - we recently moved, and had to live with the cats in a hotel for a weekend because our house was being tented for termites. We went out of town for new year's eve and when we came back our poor little guy had his left eye crusted shut and just seemed... ill. We took him to the vet and they tested his blood, and it turns out he has jaundice. The vet said it is very likely that he has what's called Fatty Liver disease, which can happen when a cat is stressed out and doesn't eat for a few days. It can be cured but is sometimes fatal. I'm so bummed out and worried. A vet is coming by in an hour to see about placing a feeding tube in him, but I just hate to see my little fur baby like this. The worst part is that he's my fiance's cat and my fiance is kind of in denial about how sick he is, he keeps saying, "it's just his eye, it's just his eye" when he himself heard the doctor tell us how serious this is. Ok.. I just needed to get this off my chest. If you believe in prayers please say a few for our sweet little Leo.. he had such a hard life and is so happy at home with us. It is so unfair for a 1-year-old kitty to have to go through something like this. I appreciate any advice anyone can give us. Thank you.

Aww good luck to you and your adorable kitty!

If it helps, my gorgeous kitty wound up in intensive care at an emergency hospital when she was about 9 months old for a condition they told me would either go away, or kill her within a few weeks.  Knock on wood, but that was 3 years ago and with regular checkups she's been fine ever since!  Good luck to you both, and I highly recommend pet insurance!  It helped me feel much better about knowing that if anything ever happened again I'd have some help with the bills.

What a cutie pie. I'll be keeping you and your kitty in my thoughts. Let us know how things turn out. 

((HUGS)) Keep good thoughts going.

I couldn't imagine what I would do if anything happened to my two babies :(

Aww, I really hope your little orange guy pulls through. I recently had to put my 2 yr old orange boy to sleep (don't worry, he had something completely different), so I know how it feels to have a really sick cat.

I'll keep Leo in my thoughts; and keep us updated!

edit: I was hoping RedHerring would chime in :)

Awwww, I'm sitting here tearing up at how awesome all of you are and am so touched that all of these replies came in so soon! Thank you SO MUCH... it really helps to hear that other people know what's going on and how it feels.

Crebre: Thank you so much!

AprilBride: I'm so glad your kitty was okay! Yay for success stories.

Chacha: Thank you so much :)

Shushu - thank you thank you thank you!

MstoMrs - thank you!!

Sulli: Thank you for your thoughts

FloridaBeach: Thank you :)

Redherring, I will keep your advice in mind!! Thanks for chiming in. I've done a lot of research and also think the tube is the best way to go.

Neuxs: I'm sorry to hear about your little guy. It's so hard :(

MrsK2Be, We are very lucky that the organization we adopted him from can help us out. The lady coming to us tonight is a retired vet who does house calls for the organization. Likely he'll be going into a new vet tomorrow for a tube but we are so grateful they can come help us out.

Madilove: Thank you!! Send some sunshine too, it's been chilly here!

I'm so sorry that your poor kitty is sick. I have 2 cats, so I know how sad this must make you. If the vet thinks it may be stress, I'd try to keep the cat in one room and spend time soothing him to try to reduce his stress level. Moving is really hard on pets, and if you can get him to feel safe, he may start eating again. I would try to keep the room quite for him too. If he has less to process, he may feel less overwhelmed. I really hope that your kitty feels better soon!

POOR BABY IS RIGHT! I myself have 3 cats all of which I have rescued... the last one came from the woods at the school I work at-- ANYWAY! When we got our second guy-- also orange, Joey, he was stressed and also had the SAME thing with the eye! He actually ended up giving it to the other cat so we had 2 at one time suffering! We got an eye cream from the shelter we adopted him from but any vet can get it for you or maybe online-- it's called Terramycin. You have to apply the ointment with a q-tip basically in the corner of their eyelid and press their eye shut back and forth a couple times so that it spreads in the eye. You do this twice a day. This should help the eye situation. It was terrible but they all recovered from it in a couple weeks. If you have other cats, keep them seperated as it's contagious!

GOOD LUCK AND HOPE HE FEELS BETTER!!! He's lucky to have a good mommy and daddy!

Thank you so much girls!! I feel better today because we have semi-good news - the new doctor we took him to thinks that he may not need a feeding tube, as we were able to give him some fish last night. He's spending the night at the hospital and they're going to give him some high protein food. If he doesn't respond to it by tomorrow, they'll do the feeding tube and keep him until Friday to get him started. All in all his prognosis sounds much better than we initially had thought!! The doctor said he definitely has fatty liver but it's in the early stages so his chances of healing are great. Also, the cost is not as insane as we thought, it's still a lot but much more manageable than we expected. All of your well wishes are helping him (and me and the fiance) through this! We sobbed all night last night when trying to think that we might lose our little kitty love who's already made it so far from his rough start!! Thank you so much! I'll keep you updated :)

RedHerring is RIGHT on about everything. I took on a foster kitty with hepatic lipidosis and had to force feed him myself with a syringe for about a month before he started eating on his own again. He did end up recovering against all odds and was placed in an awesome home where he still resides happily ever after! It's more common for cats that were overweight to start with so be sure that you monitor his weight in the future and try to keep him at a healthy weight. Best wishes. They can make it through this with proper vet and supportive care.

Thanks girls!!

@2010bride2be - It's so odd because Leo was perfect weight! Not overweight at all... But now that we are aware of it, I'm going to try extra hard to keep him that way!