Saddle Thrombosis (embolism in cats)

Buddingblonde

Marycarol wrote: »

This is just so sad and so real to me as I lost my lovely 15 year old cat yesterday to the same thing. Up until yesterday she had been fine and then suddenly was struck down. The vet advised pts as she was in so much distress. I have cried ever since and can't believe she's gone. My thoughts are with you at this awful time.

Mine are with you too - a sudden illness and death makes this strangely harder to deal with.

Thanks everyone for all the lovely posts.

neffy58

Buddingblonde - my heart goes out to you, having recently lost a beautiful big ginger and white boy myself (((hugs)))

Buddingblonde

Ginger and White toms are something special arent they?

Well today is a new day and I am determined not to keep crying :- ball face, bright red with puffy slitty eyes is not a good look.

Thank you everyone who has sent messages - yesterday was really really hard but OH needs me to be strong now as he is still visably devastated.

Ravensmoon

Buddingblonde wrote: »

Life is cruel but then the immense love we get from our pets and loved ones means that there is immense pain when they go.

Ginger is still with us - just. He has been on pain relief and aspirin for 2 days now and has regained bowel control and is eating (although he is a fat cat so I dont see the eating as anything more than his usual "im a greedy animal" routine).
The vet rang yesterday to say she wanted to give him another 24 hours as she though that these signs were encouraging and that he was in no pain.
We have consented to this and are now waiting for the phone to ring. Unless he is making more obvious progress (he is still paralysed in his legs) he will be pts today. OH wants us to go and be with him when this happens - which we have done before with our previous cat but I dont know if my heart could take it again. I am typing this with tears running down my face as I know that there will not be any good news today and I cant keep putting the inevitable off. I asked if he should be pts when it happened but OH wants him to have every chance he can. The internet reading is soooo negative it will take a miracle for him to pull through. And miracles dont happen for the likes of me.

I have some good news and bad news....

The good news is that Murphy is ok....he spent 10 days at the vets having intensive treatment.

He has a wonky back left leg and is on a special diet....if I hadn't have got him insured it would have cost me over £3000.00 to save him....

He has monthly check ups just to see if he is doing ok....

I think that he is alive today because of the fact that I was around just straight after it had happened and got him help PDQ....

So me being long term ill, disabled, wheelchair and housebound was a positive in this event....

The bad news is that my mum passed away on 11th April at 10:15am....


xXx

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Ravensmoon wrote: »

The bad news is that my mum passed away on 11th April at 10:15am....


xXx

So sorry to hear that.

blueybug

My 11yr old Bella died of this 3 weeks ago.

Its awful thing to watch.

We had her PTS because the clot moved to her lungs.

Within 24 hrs she was gone

RIP little Fluffy

Flo-zo

I would just like to add to this thread despite the age in case anyone is searching for some hope in this situation. It's slim but it is there...

Our cat had a saddle embolism at the beginning of May 2011 - he is still with us and now has completely normal mobility; especially whist darting past me on the stairs trying to trip me up!

He still does have the underlying heart condition and is on lifetime medication, however he really does not care and has an excellent quality of life at the moment.

If your cat has responded to the clot busters they give on initial diagnosis and you have a laid back cat like ours who is willing you to keep them going, there is long term treatment to reduce the high risk of recurrence and give them longer. We use clopidogrel (a human medication to reduce stickiness of platelets) fortekor (for his heart) and then a daily low molecular weight heparin injection (to thin his blood). When we researched the treatment before going ahead we found a cat in the US that had survived 2yrs on this regime and was still going.

We are very lucky and have an excellent vet who also happens to be a cardio specialist for the area. I have no doubt un-medicated we would have lost him months ago. The costs of treatment are not excessive when worked out over time as human sized medication packs last ages. Well worth a go for appropriate cases.