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I'm so upset about my cat's medical emergency


Coy Koi

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I'm having a hard night. My beautiful cat, Freya, is very sick with a bowel obstruction and needs surgery for it. But she already hasn't eaten for a couple days and that's very dangerous for cats. She went to the vet today but they couldn't do the surgery until tomorrow morning, and going to an emergency vet would have cost thousands of dollars more (just like with humans, cat ERs are far more expensive), which I just can't afford (I can't really afford this either, but I'm planning to do it anyway). My cat doesn't seem to be in pain or anything, thankfully. She even purrs a bit when cuddled. But I just hope it won't be too late by the time she has the surgery and I'm so worried and sad and upset with myself, because the reason she has this obstruction is that I gave her a piece of cardboard packing material to play with, and apparently she ate enough of it to cause this obstruction. I feel so much guilt and regret. I knew she was chewing on this cardboard but I didn't think she was EATING it. My cat drives me insane, but I love her, and my daughter loves her, and I don't know how to deal with this. My mom is helping me a lot and she's extremely sympathetic but she lovingly suggests I need to toughen up a little bit, but I don't know how. I can't help being like this. My teenage daughter is incredibly sweet and loves our cat immensely and is very worried and upset too, but she feels she can handle it if our cat dies. I don't (even though she's closer to the cat that I am, really, she does most of the pet care). I've had pets die before and I just about fall apart. It's not that I'm even THAT MUCH of an animal lover. I guess I'm just exceptionally bad at coping with loss. But I have no idea what to do about that. If she doesn't survive this, I don't know how I can ever forgive myself for giving her that stupid piece of cardboard.

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(Hugs) my newest kitty eats weird stuff too. Its not something you expect to go wrong. I worked for a vet for more than a year so I don't know if they're planning to go in and fully cut the bowel then re-section or just remove the cardboard using laparoscopic. Can't promise all will be fine but will definitely keep her in my prayers today!

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No one would have thought a cat would eat cardboard. Most animals are pretty good at knowing the difference between food and not food. It's not your fault. 

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Don't beat yourself up!  Cats chew on weird stuff, and some of it inevitably gets eaten. There are countless times around Christmas where I find gift wrapped poop in the litter box after mine eats the ribbons off packages. Hope surgery goes well!

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Hoping for a good outcome for kitty, mom and daughter.  Keep us posted! 

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Please keep us posted about your kitty. I was reminded of this because I just caught my fool of a cat eating the plastic wrapper from a 4-pack of toilet paper. WTF?!?

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i hope your kitty's surgery is going well.  best wishes to all three of you.

we had a cat back in the 70's who used to eat tinsel off the christmas tree and lick photographs.

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Oh dear. Silly kitty eating not-food. Don't feel bad. If it wasn't the cardboard, she probably would have found something else inappropriate to eat. Hope it works out for you all.

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Oh, I definitely feel for you. I would do the same thing and my cats would probably eat cardboard too. I hope things go well with the surgery today.

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You can't blame yourself. Cats have the weirdest habits when it comes to chewing. I hope the surgery goes OK.

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Wow, for some reason I didn't get any notification of replies! I actually felt a bit hurt about it! But thank you for all your well wishes! My kitty had her surgery and is doing great now :). I guess we just need to be really careful from now on about what the little monster can access. I'm so relieved and happy that she's okay. She, on the other hand, probably thinks I'm a huge jerk for shoving some weird liquid (antibiotics) down her throat twice a day. We'll both be glad when that's done.

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Brilliant news CK! Make sure you give kitty a big cuddle from everyone at FJ.

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I'm so glad your cat is okay.  My cat sometimes chews on cardboard.  I have a cardboard moving box in a spare room and I noticed some cardboard debris the other day, which means she was chewing on it.  Thankfully, she's never suffered any ill effects but now I know to be more careful about cardboard.

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1 minute ago, EmmieJ said:

I'm so glad your cat is okay.  My cat sometimes chews on cardboard.  I have a cardboard moving box in a spare room and I noticed some cardboard debris the other day, which means she was chewing on it.  Thankfully, she's never suffered any ill effects but now I know to be more careful about cardboard.

My cat has always liked to scratch and chew on cardboard boxes, but I don't think she was actually eating any of the cardboard. The thing she DID eat was a type of shredded cardboard packing material. I thought she was just playing with it like she did with cardboard boxes, but then she threw up (not extremely unusual for her) and there was a piece of cardboard in it, so we got rid of the cardboard. A couple days later is when this all happened. The vet said that cardboard (or any paper product) is extremely dehydrating, which can result in fecal matter that is so hard that it creates a blockage, which is what happened to my poor baby, despite having a diet of canned food (which normally would prevent constipation). Very expensive lesson learned for me!

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Thanks for the additional info.  My cat eats only dry food so maybe I ought to give her a little canned food now and again.  She also throws up every once in awhile - sometimes it's clearly a furball but other times it's just regurgitated cat food.  I appreciate when she makes the effort to throw up on the kitchen floor rather than in the carpeted living room.

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1 minute ago, EmmieJ said:

Thanks for the additional info.  My cat eats only dry food so maybe I ought to give her a little canned food now and again.  She also throws up every once in awhile - sometimes it's clearly a furball but other times it's just regurgitated cat food.  I appreciate when she makes the effort to throw up on the kitchen floor rather than in the carpeted living room.

I feed my cat canned food because I read that some experts consider the cheapest canned food to be better than the most expensive dry food. I don't know how true that is, but I do know the one time I tried to give my cat some expensive dry food, she had diarrhea everywhere, which was obviously due to the change in diet and not necessarily the type of food, but still, it made me stick with Friskies Poultry Platter, which according to all my research, is the best inexpensive canned food available (it has meat as the first ingredient, while most inexpensive dry or canned foods have a meat byproduct...I wish I could afford to give my cat the expensive food with the really high quality ingredients but I can't). If you grab some Poultry Platter for your cat I'm sure she will be thrilled!

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Dry vs. canned may just depend on the cat.  Mine share a can every morning and have mid-range dry through the day and are fine.  A few friends go with just dry and their cats are also fine.  My mom's cat refuses to eat canned.  I've heard so much conflicting info on what's better that I gave up and just give them what they're willing to eat.

So glad to hear Freya is better now!!

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I'm glad your kitty is doing OK!  Cats and dogs aren't just like family, they are family.  They just have four legs, fur, and a tail.  When our furry family goes it's just as hard for me as when the human members of my family go.

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4 hours ago, Coy Koi said:

I feed my cat canned food because I read that some experts consider the cheapest canned food to be better than the most expensive dry food. I don't know how true that is, but I do know the one time I tried to give my cat some expensive dry food, she had diarrhea everywhere, which was obviously due to the change in diet and not necessarily the type of food, but still, it made me stick with Friskies Poultry Platter, which according to all my research, is the best inexpensive canned food available (it has meat as the first ingredient, while most inexpensive dry or canned foods have a meat byproduct...I wish I could afford to give my cat the expensive food with the really high quality ingredients but I can't). If you grab some Poultry Platter for your cat I'm sure she will be thrilled!

So glad to hear your little kitty cat is well now!

RE: the bolded. Last year our kitty cat had a pee pee problem. We came home one night and he was hiding under the table and wouldn't come out, which is super odd behavior for him. My partner got under there and got him out--and the cat proceeded to pee on him.

He then started hunching down and dragging himself and making a horrible noise, and kept going to his litter box, scratching, and then coming out and dragging himself around. We took him to the emergency vet and he had idiopathic cystitis (??) which is apparently a common issue with housecats who are overweight (and he's overweight) who don't get enough water. At the time, we were feeding him only dry, and the vet told us to start feeding him canned (mixed with some water) in the morning, and dry at night.

He hasn't had any issues since then, so I guess it works.

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My poor girl has a host of GI problems that occasionally flare up. I think it stresses me out more than her. So glad your sweet girl is on the road to recovery!

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21 hours ago, Coy Koi said:

My cat has always liked to scratch and chew on cardboard boxes, but I don't think she was actually eating any of the cardboard. The thing she DID eat was a type of shredded cardboard packing material. I thought she was just playing with it like she did with cardboard boxes, but then she threw up (not extremely unusual for her) and there was a piece of cardboard in it, so we got rid of the cardboard. A couple days later is when this all happened. The vet said that cardboard (or any paper product) is extremely dehydrating, which can result in fecal matter that is so hard that it creates a blockage, which is what happened to my poor baby, despite having a diet of canned food (which normally would prevent constipation). Very expensive lesson learned for me!

Good to know. I'm sorry you had to find that out the hard way!

Im so glad she is on the mend! :)

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