Charlie, my cat, is very ill. It is agony watching him. I am going back to the vet for the 5th time in about 3 weeks. He is on antibiotics but they are not working. In fact he has got worse over the time I have been giving them to him (5 days).
He has a temperature. He has a swollen eyelid (right eye). He won’t eat or can’t eat. He tries to eat and stops. He can smell the food. It is as if something is preventing him. Sore throat? Blockage? I don’t know. He can’t eat the best food I can give him. He has stopped talking to me.
He has an acute bacterial infection that antibiotics don’t seem to fix. He also a viral infection as diagnosed by the vet.
He has lost quite a lot of weight. There is something going on beyond cat flu it seems to me but I don’t know. It might simply be a very bad case of herpes or calicivirus but I have a feeling it is more than that.
Anyway I had to get it off my chest. It is impossible for me to see him this ill and in discomfort. He can’t settle down. He constantly adjusts his position when resting. He constantly tries to remove something from his mouth with his tongue.
He has had two session of dental surgery so his teeth (what is left of them) should be OK. Fungal infection? No idea if this is the case. There could be something in the air around here which is causing an allergic reaction but he has no itchiness – nothing. I moved home and there is a lot of foliage around here. I am clutching at straws.
I’ll leave it there for the time being. I feel helpless.
There are times when the best professional is beat and one is thrown on one own’s resources. They don’t have the time or incentive to consider possibilities outside the usual ones. I only know about this new dangerous strain of calici because I am in contact with many cat owners and breeders. Good luck with his high nutrition diet. At least it will help keep his strength up and he may enjoy it.
Must be careful of Vitamin A toxicity with liver.
Small amounts are fine.
Thanks for being so sweet Babz. I have to confess it is the hardest thing emotionally for me to deal with. Almost anything else is easier.
Thanks for the sympathy and advice, Harvey. I’ll give the chicken liver and cat food mix a try. He was really ill this morning and has been for several days. I hate to see him like that. In fact I can’t bear it. I have to do something to help (fifth visit to vet – they are probably sick of me).
I have good vets but I don’t think they have really grasped this problem and provided firm confident advice and a strategy to defeat it.
So sorry to hear that Charlie is in a bad way. I have heard there is a mutated strain of the calici virus around to which even older cats have little resistance. (Systemic invasive calici virus). That’s just a guess. It’s a matter of keeping up his strength and hoping for the best. In this case I would feed him mashed chicken liver mixed with canned food and added water like a thick soup via a plastic syringe.
Hoping and praying that Charlie pulls through and starts to improve soon, so glad the vet seems to think that he will recover but it really is heart breaking watching your cat being so ill. Thinking of you both, please keep us updated how he is.