My cat is very ill. I have to talk about it


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.

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113 thoughts on “My cat is very ill. I have to talk about it”

  1. Michael I’ve only just seen this post today. You mention an update post but I can’t find that. I hope by now Charlie’s condition has improved. This must certainly be a very trying time for you.

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  2. 🙁

    So sorry to hear. It’s a shame the antibiotics aren’t working. Do you have a cat specialist in your area? We have three cat only vets in our area. I wonder if they might be able to find something a regular vet wouldn’t know to look for. I would try a second vet just to be sure the everything that can be done is being done. Let us know how he’s doing. Poor kitty!

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    • Thanks Dan. Well I have some more news so I’ll do a short post on it. I have been thinking about getting a second opinion. But for the time being I have ‘taken charge’. I’ll write briefly about it.

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      • Im so sorry for you both at this time. I wish you both all the love and support for a speedy recovery and strength to you too Michael to get through such a difficult time. Please get a second opinion, you will feel heaps better and most importantly Charlie could benefit from that other, new vets opinion. All the best to you both Suzy

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  3. I have taken Charlie back to the vet again. The antibiotics are not working so I have requested:

    swab test to isolate the type of bacteria to select antibiotic

    blood test to check for underlying illnesses

    biopsy on lump at base of spine

    pain relief instructions

    I am also moving to a different flat for a week in case there is something in their air causing sinusitis.

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  4. Sadly another post too long to hold my interest, especially as not much to do with cats. Michael is not alone in skimming posts of this length as I do it too.

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  5. To Dee and Leah — It’s 8:30 p.m and just came home a while ago.

    It goes without saying I’m sorry for poor Charlie, and hope he recovers, though weight loss in a cat – from my own experience – is an indication of…but anyone knows what it indicates. If he’s young enough, though, he might recover. Maybe it’s only a viral infection. Here’s hoping, poor man.

    Actually, am in tears today – so what else is new? – and wondering in the name of Sam Hill how to bear still more sadness. (And yes, Dee – I can only imagine what you’ve gone through – both of you, far as that goes, with all your kids. We’ve all followed our fur-kids, as far as we could, through the V of D.)

    Be that as it may, since Insp. McWee’s death last Sept., I’ve driven up to the local graveyard – hundreds of acres on a beautiful hill – where there’s also a Pet Crematorium & cemetery. Both my kids ended up on the hill this past year, though I brought their ashes home.

    Since that time, every couple of months I’ve bought a great big toy for a dog – a black lab – who belongs to the young gravedigger up there. No, he doesn’t ‘dig’ in the old-fashioned way – he does it with a bulldozer or something (a post hole digger – whatever).

    But what was so touching about that dog, she had only three legs, like Charlie – though she still could outrun any featherless biped. How did she lose her hind leg at the hip? Her dad ran over her with his bulldozer while she lay sleeping. She went to work with him everyday,and was the cemetery’s ‘Mascot’ – everyone loved and admired her.

    Well…joy-bells. This morning my automatic garage door was stuck. After the handbag fiasco last week, am still wobbling in my tracks. And now the garage door is shot?? God have mercy. So I called a garage door repairman who came out here within the hour. I asked him PLEASE not to overcharge me, as most contractors do in this frontier town.

    Happy day! He took a quick look at the door, said it was in perfect working order except for needing some lubricant, whipped out a spray-can of wax & goose grease, squirted a bunch of hinges, and said the door was in perfect shape, and would last for decades.

    Before he turned to leave, however, my cider press, shoved up against the wall, caught his eye. I bought it seven years ago, used it only once when my sun room was knee-deep in apples, and swore I’d never again subject myself to that lunatic ordeal. The press is a masterpiece of craftsmanship. A few years back, Forbes magazine did a global survey of hand-operated cider presses, and this ranked first place: they called it the ‘Rolls Royce’ of presses. It’s handmade by a guy from Oregon ash, and cost $1,200 new, though I bought it locally from two retired schoolteachers for $300. And it’s sat in the garage ever since.

    Anyhow, the door-guy was starry-eyed, said his apples were breaking the branches, and wrote me a check for $300. As much as I wanted to keep the press, it was something I will never use again.

    A nifty little windfall, in short, which is why I dropped in to the pet store later today, bought a three-foot-long rawhide bone, and drove up the hill to the marble orchard (which dates from the 1870s: it has hundreds of pioneer graves).

    OMG…OMG….. Does the sadness never end?

    That gentle, lovable dog DIED last week, and her father collapsed. He hasn’t been back to work for days. His best little girl was only five, and she died of leukemia.

    So the bone and I wended our way down the hill, returned it to the pet store and exchanged it for a gigantic bag of cat victuals (‘vittles’) for Sidney Vicious – who in fact loves everyone, and hates only other cats.

    Yet the sorrow goes on – animal and human….

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