sphynxmommy1
Lairian
- Joined
- May 28, 2013
- Messages
- 169
- Points
- 81
Hi everyone. Some of you may have read a previous post of mine about liver damage and seeking advice for our Sphynx-Persian mixed 3 year old girl. If you read our updates you all know and understand how hard we’ve fought for this little girl. Sadly this is an update I’ve hesitated writing and needed some time before doing so. We lost Lydia. On April 3, 2023. Our hearts are so broken. Here is a full recap and update with hopes it will serve as help for anyone who goes thru anything similar. We’d been fighting against cholangiohepititis since January 9, 2023. Lydia was totally normal, no signs of distress or sickness . She happen to get up next to me and I noticed her ears looked slightly yellow tinged. I rushed her to the vet. After testing, urine, complete blood count and liver enzymes tests, we were told it was looking like cholangiohepititis, but to be certain we’d need to do an ultra sound and see an internal specialist. We agreed. While we waited for her ultra sound appointment we decided to treat her with antibiotics, liver supplements, and 9 days straight of sub q fluids at the vet hospital. She was doing good. We had the ultrasound and the radiologist confirmed it appeared to be cholangiohepititis but we need a liver biopsy to be sure we killed off bacteria with the now 2 months of nonstop antibiotics. So we had the liver biopsy and another ultrasound in March 2023. Biopsy showed no more bacteria and what remained in this miserable illness is internal inflammation. Liver, pancreas and gallbladder all inflamed pretty bad. So we began prednisolone treatment. In 2 weeks we finally had some relief. The liver counts had dropped with 2 counts being in normal range and the other 2 almost there, all other organs and complete blood count looked fantastic. Fast forward to March 29. I noticed she was breathing heavy. I called the vet and was worried that her being half Sphynx and taking prednisolone 2 times a day was affecting her heart. However she had a probnp 9 months ago and was good, I was still worried about her heart. The vet said to watch her breaths per minute and drop her to a half a tablet of prednisolone a day. Take her to emergency if her breathing doesn’t calm down. At this time she was 37 BPM. April 1 she was at 32 BPM so we were seeing improvement. At 7pm she had been sleeping in my sons room with the door closed so she could rest without any other cats bothering her. I went to check on her and she was waiting at the door to come out and play. She raced down the stairs and was excited to see the other cats and seemed ok. She climbed the cat tree and my husband noticed she started breathing really hard and really fast. I clocked her at 70 BPM. My husband pulled her off the cat tree and rushed her back to our sons room to get her to a safe space while I called emergency. She used the litter box then stepped out and collapsed and stopped breathing. My husband started cpr and got her to breath. We scooped her up and rushed her to the emergency hospital who was waiting for us to arrive and was aware of the situation. They took her from us immediately. Within an hour they stabilized her. They ran X-rays and complete blood count. And they called us into a room to review. Her cholangiohepititis was cleared. All liver counts normal. X-rays and blood work showed it was not her heart. It appeared she had a small amount of fluid in one lung only they called aspiration pneumonia. They believed because of no signals or warning signs she had aspirated vomit from her medications and some went in the lung and had become infected. This type of pneumonia doesn’t have signs until the cat collapses. Her blood showed anemia which matches the pneumonia. We agreed to keep her hospitalized in an oxygen tent for as long as it took to clear her up. We said goodnight to her and went home. April 2 we were allowed to come visit her and she was improving, eating and drinking on her own and no longer on an iv. Still in the oxygen tent. We could one at time out our hand in to pet her. She was breathing hard, but seemed so happy to see us. She was rubbing her head in our hands. So sweet. April 3 at 6:10am I got the call she was in respiratory distress and they’d began cpr. They were on their 2nd round of cpr and she’d not had a heartbeat for 25 minutes and was intubated. We rushed to the veterinary hospital but upon arrival we already knew we’d lost her. We were met by a team of 2 vets, 2 vet techs, a radiologist, internal medicine specialist, one nurse and 2 receptionists, the entire team was in the lobby to meet us and there wasn’t one dry eye. We knew. They brought her to us to say goodbye. It was devastating. This was our sons precious kitty. He was heartbroken. They took turns introducing themselves to us and explaining what they did and ultimately they were aggressively treating the pneumonia and the last ultrasound that early morning at 3am showed both lungs full of fluid despite all of their efforts. They were able to confirm she died of ARDS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome. It’s 100% fatale and goes undetected until it’s to late. They did everything they could to save her. Our hearts are so broken. But we take comfort in knowing we also did everything we could and gave her every chance we could. We are starting the healing process now that we have her ashes home with us. Princess Lydia, you are forever loved so much and now at home with us forever, your family❤️
