When my cat passed, I was told it was end-stage renal failure. But when I looked at his final blood work results, and then investigated their meanings further (the TanyaCRF site came up more than once), I'm now under the impression that this was not the whole story.
Going by the information I found, I was able to rule out other possible things (I previously thought that his last meal was what finished him off, but my Dad had given the same bag of food to a friend of his to give to her cats, one who had a kidney issue of her own, and they experienced no problem whatsoever), but now my new theory is this:
Somewhere between March of last year, when he last had blood work before this past February, and this past January, when he had a bout of diarrhea and vomiting after eating a can of food he was not used to, resulting in him not eating for the rest of the day (he seemingly returned to normal a day or two after, without any treatment), he had gotten a bacterial infection (sepsis?), which was left unchecked and thus, allowed to spread to his organs, namely, his kidneys, after he had already been diagnosed with CRF. Unfortunately, because he always appeared to be in good spirits, eating well, running around, jumping up on things, etc., it never seemed urgent to get any updated tests done (plus, I was perpetually low on money to afford the testing).
The final blood work showed highly elevated white blood cells, BUN, creatinine, and SDMA, with the vet note "severe infection present". I just can't help thinking that this was not a typical show of what ESRF should look like. I feel like it was something that I missed, or worse yet, something that I was presented with the opportunity to check for in January, but declined, because the vet on duty said that his kidneys felt fine, he just felt some constipation around the bowel area (huh?), which ultimately led to his kidneys shutting down. Anyone have any thoughts or similar experiences?
Going by the information I found, I was able to rule out other possible things (I previously thought that his last meal was what finished him off, but my Dad had given the same bag of food to a friend of his to give to her cats, one who had a kidney issue of her own, and they experienced no problem whatsoever), but now my new theory is this:
Somewhere between March of last year, when he last had blood work before this past February, and this past January, when he had a bout of diarrhea and vomiting after eating a can of food he was not used to, resulting in him not eating for the rest of the day (he seemingly returned to normal a day or two after, without any treatment), he had gotten a bacterial infection (sepsis?), which was left unchecked and thus, allowed to spread to his organs, namely, his kidneys, after he had already been diagnosed with CRF. Unfortunately, because he always appeared to be in good spirits, eating well, running around, jumping up on things, etc., it never seemed urgent to get any updated tests done (plus, I was perpetually low on money to afford the testing).
The final blood work showed highly elevated white blood cells, BUN, creatinine, and SDMA, with the vet note "severe infection present". I just can't help thinking that this was not a typical show of what ESRF should look like. I feel like it was something that I missed, or worse yet, something that I was presented with the opportunity to check for in January, but declined, because the vet on duty said that his kidneys felt fine, he just felt some constipation around the bowel area (huh?), which ultimately led to his kidneys shutting down. Anyone have any thoughts or similar experiences?