Phoebe's Illness

Phoebe is our oldest cat, she is thirteen. She is all black (we think she's part Burmese) with big green/yellow eyes and has been a lean cat all of her life. The Friday after we got back from our trip to Chicago, she was acting totally normal. I worked at the vet that night and when I got home around 9pm, I checked on all of our pets as I always do. She was laying on the guest bed so I went in to say hello and then got ready for bed like usual. Typically, she joins us in bed every night, which Ryan isn't a big fan of because she likes to sleep in between us which makes him feel like he can't move. I can understand that. That night, she never came in... not totally unusual for her as there have been a few nights over the past three or four months where she has slept somewhere else. That saturday morning I found her still on the guest bed, a bit of a red flag, so I picked her up and placed her on the second level of our cat post where their food is. She wobbled and clearly had little strength in her back legs.

We were heading to Boulder for Lily's puppy socialization class so I called the vet I work at, Arapahoe Animal Hospital, and found out that our downtown hospital (we have two locations) had room to see her right away. When we got there, they did and exam and some bloodwork and also gave her fluids as she was fairly dehydrated. The bloodwork primarily showed that she had high calcium, which usually indicates that there is a malignacy somewhere. So, they called me to ask if they could do x-rays and of course I said yes. However, the x-rays didn't show any masses in her organs which is what they thought they might find. After the fluids we took her home only to return her to the vet that evening to be looked at again & to receive fluids overnight. Sunday, we went for a visit in the afternoon. She had been on fluids all day and they now found, through further bloodwork, that her potassium was low which can cause muscle weakness, so that was added to her fluids. We took her home that afternoon, only to take a trip to an ER vet near our house that night. She seems disoriented, was twitching and seemed uncomfortable. I knew that I couldn't give her the care she needed. The next morning, the ER vet and the doctor at the vet where I work, Dr. Carisa Ralph, decided that it might be time for Phoebe to go to CSU to have an ultrasound.

CSU is a teaching hospital and they also have many specialists on staff. Basically, when you have a strange case, which Phoebe's is, or your animal is very sick you go to CSU. So, the thought of going there was scary and exciting at the same time as I hoped they would be able to figure out what was wrong. Up to this point, she didn't show any signs of being in pain. For me, and some might call me crazy, I didn't feel that I had any right to put her to sleep until I knew what was wrong. Thirteen is older for a cat, but in my opinion it is not OLD.

Monday, I spent all day at CSU with her. We waited an hour and a half to be seen by a doctor and then waited three more to receive her ultrasound, which did not reveal any masses, again. I tried to sleep in the exam room she and I waited in, but it was fairly noisy as we were right next to a very busy lobby area so I didn't get much rest. Watching your pet feel ill and not knowing what's wrong and not being able to help them is one of the worst feelings in the whole world. It was awful, painful, and sad. I grieved that weekend over her, not knowing if she was going to make it or not. She spent the next 36 hours at CSU while they did more testing and kept her on fluids. After we brought her back on Tuesday night, she went back to the vet I work at for more fluids, monitoring and meds. Little by little she gained some strength in her hind area back and with the help of a sling we put under her belly she was up and moving around the hospital. The staff there is amazing and they were truly and honestly happy when she made progress. She had a lot of people pulling for her! An MRI was the next logical step in our quest for a diagnosis, but it is $1200 - $1600 to perform and I just couldn't spend that much more. The steroid was a cheaper alternative to checking to see if she has cancer somewhere. Basically, if the steroid shot helped, she probably had cancer, but it would also make her feel a whole lot better. So, Thursday evening we gave her her first Steroid shot. It seemed to help so she got another on Friday. She came home with us Thursday night and then on Friday night for good. We took her off of the steroids on saturday so we could see if it was those which were helping her to improve or if it was the potassium and simply time. Sunday evening, she went back on them again... she wasn't doing poorly not having them in her system, but I could tell she wasn't as comfortable either. At this point, we were still very unsure of her prognosis but she was getting a little better each day and we were still waiting for some test results from CSU on her thyroid and parathyroid.

Those came back last Tuesday and they showed that she has hyperparathyroidism, which is very rare in cats. This disease causes high calcium which could, in turn, cause the body to want to rid itself of that which generally causes other electrolytes to go with it. This is probably what caused her potassium to drop which created the weakness. Phoebe just happened to be back at AAH for a recheck on her bloodwork and one of the specialists that come to our hospital weakly came in that day and performed a WONDERFUL ultrasound on her for no charge. From the sound of it, he has a special weakness for female, black cats (he used to have two of them) and she is pretty easy to love with her carefree and lovey personality. He found that there are a few things going on, but nothing totally conclusive. He did notice that one of her thyroid glands was enlarged, which goes along with CSU's diagnosis.

Time has shown big improvements. For now, she is doing much much better and is acting almost totally like herself. She is on steroid pills twice daily, a blood pressure pill once daily and potassium supplement which is put in her food. Tomorrow, she is going in for surgery that Dr. Ralph will perform. Cats have two thyroids and on each thyroid there are four parathyroid glands. The surgery for her will be to remove one entire gland, and it's parathyroids along with it. The biggest scare is that she won't make it through the surgery, but her strength is almost completely back to normal again. She is eating, pooping, peeing, jumping, meowing, purring, sleeping with us... everything she would normally do. So, I feel confident that she is ready for this and I know Dr. Ralph does too. The other difficulty is that when the thyroid is removed, the extra calcium it was creating will go along with it, so her calcium levels have to be closely monitored for the next few days. I will fly out of town to Portland for work on Tuesday, and be back on Thursday night. So, she will spend tomorrow in surgery and at my vet and then they will transfer her to the Boulder ER for overnight monitoring the first couple of nights. She will stay at my vet until I return on Friday.

Hopefully, this surgery will be the key to getting her to live for many years to come. As I said earlier, I could not and would not give up on her until I knew it was time. At no point did I feel that she was truly suffering and in horrible horrible pain or I would have made the humane decision. Please send good vibes our way tomorrow and keep us in your thoughts. I'll let you know the outcome.