My lovely little cat had an accident last Saturday, March 2nd. He's a (nearly) three year old tom who loves to play outside and explore. We're not exactly sure what happened but basically the result has been a break in his tail, where it joins the spine. It's been a hellish week. Our vets were keep to put him to sleep within days. We did not want this and asked them for some time.
We were finally able to visit him together at the vets on Tuesday, three days after the accident, and had a side consultation room to play in for an hour. This seemed made such a difference to his mood. He was allowed home Wednesday night to see if he would toilet himself in his home environment. He'd been on a cath in the vets. Sadly, he didn't wee or poo for himself and when we took him back as planned his bladder was "dangerously full" and he had to be admitted, sedated and catheterised. We then brought him home Friday evening and have been trying to express him. He has good use of his hind legs (he can walk around fine and jump onto low surfaces), and so he wriggles, scratches and bites like a rascal when we try to empty his bladder. We went back to the vets and she showed us again. We're still really struggling and it takes hours out of the day sitting, trying to be calm and giving him a squeeze. I don't know how empty I'm getting him, and have tried to read about the size it ought to be etc but don't feel any more confident at the moment
Most videos seem to be of dosile or paralysed cats. Our little man really moves around and his bladder moves around with him making it really difficult. My husband can't manage to get anything at the moment, and is very frustrated with himself.He also seems constipated. Initially, they said he had no anal tone. This seems to have shown some improvement over the past week. He was given a micro-enema and both occassions, he was passing stools. He was very uncomfortable with it up him bottom yesterday, which the vet said was a good sign. He is also scratching and posing over his litter tray.After the micro enema he went in, scratched around and passed a stool inside the tray. I cried! But then he also dropped two elsewhere so we don't know how excited to be? The vet was, by her own admission, still taking a rather doom and goom approach when I rang to let her know.
I also took him to a veterinary acupuncture session yesterday. Who knows what difference it made/will make, but the vet was kind and patient. Has anyone had experience of this? She also tried to show me another way to express his bladder. She made it look so effortless. I left with renewed confidence, got home, tried it, and failed. We're going to return to this vet practice on Friday for another acupuncture session and see if she can help us both learn to express. I'm getting so frustrated with myself and end up feeling sick and nervous knowing what I have to try to do later in the day.
We're a young couple with no children yet (we had planned to have a few years of being able to take last minute trips etc before starting a family; so much for that, hey!), and expressing his bladder is really taking it's toll after only a week or so. Crude as it may sound, we've also got to be mindful of vet bills. He's not had his tail amputated, yet, and we've been advised that this will be around £450. We've realised that while we have insurance, it's a pretty rubbish policy and doesn't cover us for more than £1500 and we're up to £1000 already, after a week. He's our baby and we love him so, so much. He hates the expressing; he howls and cries. It's heartbreaking and, although he seems content enough shortly after, I don't know how much of a life it is for a cat to keep doing this three/ four times a day (I have to do it more often than I've read because I'm not getting enough from him.)
Reading over the posts on the forum has been very useful over the last week but does anyone have any advice for me based on my little man's situation? Thank you.
) who don't want to hold still. I can picture your method pretty well from the description and I do not remember seeing a video of it anywhere. Glad you found something that works! 