Thu, 12 Dec 2002
Silent house -- afternote
We finally heard from the veterinary practice about Sekhmet's cause of
death. She died of septic peritonitis caused by a ruptured intestine -- some
days before the final collapse. If we'd noticed and rushed her to the
vet hospital she might have survived. But as the vet commented, cats
try to hide it when they're feeling ill. A human being with a ruptured
intestine would have been screaming in agony, but Sekhmet
was sitting by her food bowl asking to be fed when we left. She complained
mildly when I picked her up, but that's about it. The vet's opinion was
that we probably wouldn't have noticed anything was wrong until it was
far too late to do anything about it.
Poor little brave cat, hiding the pain from us for three days -- until
it killed her.
No cause of the rupture was found, and short of sending tissue samples
for cytology there's no way of knowing whether it was cancer or some
other weird pathology that led to it. I don't want to know that badly:
it wasn't anything obvious like chewing on a rubber band. But in future
I'm going to be really paranoid about cats and signs of gastric distress.
Anyway, we'll have her ashes to bury next week -- closure of a sort. And
then it'll be time to start calling on the local pet rescue charities to
see what cats they have in need of a new home.
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posted at: 19:26 | path: /misc | permanent link to this entry
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