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- Nov 14, 2020
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My 7-year-old cat passed away almost three weeks ago and I am having a really difficult time dealing with my loss. I come from an undeveloped country and our vets were unable to establish a diagnosis of his illness. I am trying to figure out why I lost him and I would like to ask for your opinion, please.
He was ill for around ten months during which he manifested an array of unrelated symptoms. His first symptom was a pea-sized lump between two of his toes on the front toe. He was constantly licking it and it was heavily bleeding. His first vet said that he had tumor, as soon as he saw the lump, and he removed the lump along with two of his toes. We sent the lump for biopsy and the histopathological report came a month later stating that my cat had a histiocytoma. The report was very imprecise, indicating that the tumor had histiocytic cells with low mitotic index.
Soon after my cat developed another lump on his other front paw and I took him to another vet along with the histological finding. The second vet said my cat was injured and gave him a steroid shot. The lump disappered within a month, but my cat developed other symptoms. He started sneezing and had some nasal discharge, I thought he had an allergy and after two weeks his symptoms cleared up.
As soon as he stopped sneezing, he started limping in his hind leg out of nowhere and within days he developed an arched back, limp tail, constipation and urinary incontinence. He was an indoor only cat and his vet found no broken bones, so he couldn't understand how he could have injured himself. After four days of steroid shots, his condition started improving, but within two weeks he developed a limp in his other hind leg. He was on a low dose of prednisolone for about a month and his condition improved, but he developed a severe muscle wasting in one hind leg over a month.
As soon as we weaned him off of steroids, his health rapidly deteriorated. He developed even more severe muscle wasting in his other hind leg in just a week or so, he was severely constipated, incontinent, started dragging one of his hind legs while limping on the other. For almost a year, I could hear a strange cracking sounds when he was eating dry food, it sounded like he had trouble swallowing. Then even when he was hungry, he couldn't eat well, it looked like he couldn't eat.
In the last two months, he ate much less, lost a lot of weight, developed around 10 small red lumps all over his body. I gave him prednisolone for a few days and the lumps subsided, so I thought they were caused by a fight with his sister. But, then he was sneezing a lot, had unilateral watery eye and nose discharge on the same side of the face, his hind legs gave out completely and then his front legs became progressively weak and gave out in the end. I didn't take him to a vet again because I was afraid he would have told me to put him to sleep. I loved my cat so much and couldn't accept the idea of losing him. On his last day, he had some neurological symptoms, seizures and his pupils were constantly dilating and constricting. I found him dead in the morning with bilateral Horner's syndrome and shrunken pupils.
During the last two months, he had two abdominal ultrasounds and the vet said he found nothing abnormal. He never had an x ray or CT scan because there are none in my town and due to travel restrictions I couldn't take him abroad.
I am doing really bad, so please don't judge me. I am devastated, I feel like I let him down and I find it difficult to live without him. He was a big cat and none of his vets wanted to listen to me that something was seriously wrong with his health condition.
I just would like to know if his symptoms sound like he had an undiagnosed cancer, because I still don't understand what happened.
Thank you
He was ill for around ten months during which he manifested an array of unrelated symptoms. His first symptom was a pea-sized lump between two of his toes on the front toe. He was constantly licking it and it was heavily bleeding. His first vet said that he had tumor, as soon as he saw the lump, and he removed the lump along with two of his toes. We sent the lump for biopsy and the histopathological report came a month later stating that my cat had a histiocytoma. The report was very imprecise, indicating that the tumor had histiocytic cells with low mitotic index.
Soon after my cat developed another lump on his other front paw and I took him to another vet along with the histological finding. The second vet said my cat was injured and gave him a steroid shot. The lump disappered within a month, but my cat developed other symptoms. He started sneezing and had some nasal discharge, I thought he had an allergy and after two weeks his symptoms cleared up.
As soon as he stopped sneezing, he started limping in his hind leg out of nowhere and within days he developed an arched back, limp tail, constipation and urinary incontinence. He was an indoor only cat and his vet found no broken bones, so he couldn't understand how he could have injured himself. After four days of steroid shots, his condition started improving, but within two weeks he developed a limp in his other hind leg. He was on a low dose of prednisolone for about a month and his condition improved, but he developed a severe muscle wasting in one hind leg over a month.
As soon as we weaned him off of steroids, his health rapidly deteriorated. He developed even more severe muscle wasting in his other hind leg in just a week or so, he was severely constipated, incontinent, started dragging one of his hind legs while limping on the other. For almost a year, I could hear a strange cracking sounds when he was eating dry food, it sounded like he had trouble swallowing. Then even when he was hungry, he couldn't eat well, it looked like he couldn't eat.
In the last two months, he ate much less, lost a lot of weight, developed around 10 small red lumps all over his body. I gave him prednisolone for a few days and the lumps subsided, so I thought they were caused by a fight with his sister. But, then he was sneezing a lot, had unilateral watery eye and nose discharge on the same side of the face, his hind legs gave out completely and then his front legs became progressively weak and gave out in the end. I didn't take him to a vet again because I was afraid he would have told me to put him to sleep. I loved my cat so much and couldn't accept the idea of losing him. On his last day, he had some neurological symptoms, seizures and his pupils were constantly dilating and constricting. I found him dead in the morning with bilateral Horner's syndrome and shrunken pupils.
During the last two months, he had two abdominal ultrasounds and the vet said he found nothing abnormal. He never had an x ray or CT scan because there are none in my town and due to travel restrictions I couldn't take him abroad.
I am doing really bad, so please don't judge me. I am devastated, I feel like I let him down and I find it difficult to live without him. He was a big cat and none of his vets wanted to listen to me that something was seriously wrong with his health condition.
I just would like to know if his symptoms sound like he had an undiagnosed cancer, because I still don't understand what happened.
Thank you
.
