Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm scared

For those seeking advice on caring for incontinent pets and animals with kidney-related problems.
User avatar
critters
Founding Member
Posts: 14360
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2001 7:00 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by critters »

Buddy initially got all of his functions back, but he developed a spasm at the neck of his bladder after becoming blocked.
maine_coonz
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:10 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by maine_coonz »

Feb.15.2012: This is a final and, I hope, not too compressed last post on this topic.

June.27.2011: The Acupuncturist/Holisitic Vet came over to my house and spent quite some time examining Raz; she then asked me to express him, with the usual result. Then she had a go herself, with the same zero result. We went outside for a cup of coffee and to allow her to watch Raz running around. Then she said" You must stop trying to express him, he doesn't want it, he will not allow it. You have no choice." I was absolutely flabbergasted, I thought I was hearing her sentence him to a horrible death. She recommended that we slowly reduce Raz's drugs over the next few weeks (which we did).

After she went I went to see my Vet and asked him what he thought: he said "One never knows, why not try it, we can always empty him with a catheter if necessary." And so, with my heart in my mouth, I completely stopped trying to express him. Of course, I was hassling the poor guy a million times a day feeling his bladder and following him around; the first day I thought he was going to burst, it was very hard to leave him alone. He kept on squatting and doing the tiniest little pees, but never seemed able to get a decent quantity out.

Then on day two, I noticed the bladder was definitely smaller. And so it went on, day by day. There was quite a long period of time where the bladder felt soft and squishy, never firm and hard, and I almost lost heart because I thought he would never regain muscle tone. I had to force myself to stop feeling him up, as he was getting quite antsy. And besides, it was clear that the bladder was definitely being emptied - perhaps not as completely as one would like, perhaps not as often as one would like, but nevertheless it was definitely happening.

And so the weeks dragged past, with very little improvement visible on a day-by-day basis, but over a week or two one could definitely say "Things are looking up." Then all of a sudden it was a month later, then two months ... and one day I realised there was nothing - literally nothing at all - wrong with Raz. His tail was 100% fine, his stool was 100% fine, his legs, *everything* was 100% fine. He was hunting and catching mice (and eating them); he was climbing trees; he was fighting with next door's bruiser cat; and best of all, he was eating like a horse. His brother had grown quite a bit bigger, but he was catching up fast - as of Feb.2012 Raz is actually larger and chunkier than his brother.

So: the story has a happy ending. A few final comments:

- I am absolutely convinced (as are my Vets) that the one and only reason Raz never got crystals or any kind of urine infection is because he is 100% raw fed, and his urine Ph was always perfect.

- I never added up the Vet bills because I just plain didn't want to know, but as a ballpark guess I'd say it was in the region of Euro 2,500+

- My Vet was very supportive and keen to help; in the end he published a research paper on Raz. He said that the vast majority of cats with this kind of damage do not live long enough to see if they would eventually get better, because the stress, cost and hard work are beyond most owners (but he didn't offer us any kind of discount!).

- I guess Raz is very lucky that (a) we aren't poor; (b) we work from home; and (c) I was absolutely bloody determined to do my very best for him.
And most of all that I found this website, and had the most fantastic support from the people here. I could NOT have managed without them; I think ignorance and despair would have gotten the better of me long before I came to the end of what was a very long and hard road.

I kept a diary the whole way through, and plan to put it on my website together with all the papers, books and information I found and read, in the hope that it may help someone else in the same boat. Please go to http://www.kestrel.ws/erasmus.html "Our Maine Coon Erasmus: The Tale of his Broken Tail" - but not before Feb.19.2012, by which time it should be online.
Erasmus (Raz) + Euclid + Heimdall,
Living in Germany
User avatar
critters
Founding Member
Posts: 14360
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2001 7:00 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by critters »

maine_coonz wrote: Of course, I was hassling the poor guy a million times a day feeling his bladder and following him around; the first day I thought he was going to burst, it was very hard to leave him alone. .
:hysterical: Been there, done that!! :lol:
amyestes
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:08 am

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by amyestes »

It has been a few months since your last post. I wanted to say thank you. I am caring for a newly-injured cat whose troubles seem to be similar to your Raz's. I am so thankful your story has a happy ending, and for your detailed posts. They provide me with a lot of information and hope! :thankyou:
mollysmum
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:22 am

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by mollysmum »

Like the other comment above I also wanted to thank you for helping give us a little more hope for our cat Molly. Her story is so similar to that of Raz's.
http://handicappedpet.net/helppets/view ... =5&t=16797

We're at the point now that you were at June last year.... crossing our fingers and hoping that Molly is getting better and that she's regaining her bladder function again. How is Raz now??
maine_coonz
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:10 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by maine_coonz »

A year+ later: I guess I owe many people an apology for having disappeared.
In Oct. 2011 my mother (who lives in Phoenix, Arizona) was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer.
She chose to go through the whole Radiology/Chemical thing, despite the doctors warning her that her chances were "extremely small". Suffice to say that after all the treatments were finished and she was pronounced "100% clear" by the doctors, she started talking and behaving very strangely. In early Feb.2012 I got a phone call "D, I don't know why it won't work any more, but it just doesn't". I went over to Phoenix; it turned out that the cancer had gone to her brain - apparently a favourite place for this type. Since then I've been with my Mom, who died very recently. And now I am back home, trying to pick up the pieces of my life. Mom was 80 yrs old in May 2012, by the way, so she had a good run for her money.

Finally, (!!finally !!) I really have put the website pages on Erasmus up.
http://www.kestrel.ws/erasmus.html
I would appreciate some feedback / suggestions on changes / edits.

Thank you to everyone for your appreciation, it's really nice to know that all that typing was helpful :D

Ciao,

Donna
Erasmus (Raz) + Euclid + Heimdall,
Living in Germany
User avatar
CarolC
Moderator
Posts: 13698
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2003 7:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by CarolC »

I am so sorry to hear about your mother. I'm glad you were able to be with her. I'm sure that helped her. It was the best you could do with such a situation.

I started looking at your website and all I can say so far is, it is rich and dense with material, and not just material, but material new to me. I can't believe the quality. It is going to take me a while to read every link. I barely started and already have learned new things, which means....something we can share here, linking your site. People are going to be so glad to have this resource. My first reaction, based on experience was, "Ohmygosh, look at this, we have to make sure it is preserved permanently!" That is because over the years there have been some excellent or unique resources I loved to give to people who needed that exact thing, and in time they were removed from the Internet. There is no replacement and no duplication. I rely heavily on archive.org, but sometimes things are not archived and they may just be lost. Archive.org used to allow users to submit a url to be crawled, but they don't do that any more. Instead, they have this suggestion.
http://archive.org/about/faqs.php#The_Wayback_Machine wrote:How can I get my site included in the Wayback Machine?

Much of our archived web data comes from our own crawls or from Alexa Internet's crawls. Neither organization has a "crawl my site now!" submission process. Internet Archive's crawls tend to find sites that are well linked from other sites. The best way to ensure that we find your web site is to make sure it is included in online directories and that similar/related sites link to you.

Alexa Internet uses its own methods to discover sites to crawl. It may be helpful to install the free Alexa toolbar and visit the site you want crawled to make sure they know about it.

Regardless of who is crawling the site, you should ensure that your site's 'robots.txt' rules and in-page META robots directives do not tell crawlers to avoid your site.

When a site is crawled, there is usually at least a 6-month lag, and sometimes as much as a 24-month lag, between the date that web pages are crawled and when they appear in the Wayback Machine.

In some cases, crawled content from certain projects may appear in a much shorter timeframe — as little as a few weeks from when it was crawled. Older material for the same pages and sites may still appear separately, months later.

You can be sure your site is going to be linked a lot from this board, at least as long as I am here. :wink:

I am glad to see Raz is still doing so well, and 99% is really good. I have given the link to your thread to people many times because that in itself is a resource. I should have time in the next few days to read through the site in depth. Thank you SO MUCH for making this. I would suggest letting the cat group in Germany know about it, or even translating it into German....?

:grouph: :thankyou: :trophy:
User avatar
CarolC
Moderator
Posts: 13698
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2003 7:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by CarolC »

maine_coonz wrote: Finally, (!!finally !!) I really have put the website pages on Erasmus up.
http://www.kestrel.ws/erasmus.html
More good news! I just checked archive.org and they have an August 8, 2013 crawl of Raz's website archived FOREVER!!!

https://web.archive.org/web/20130201000 ... asmus.html

:yay:
maine_coonz
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:10 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by maine_coonz »

Hey CarolC, that's really amazing news. You know, I don't really have an objective view on the usefulness (or otherwise) of Raz's "diary", so it's really nice to get positive feedback.
I trust all goes well with you and yours?
Best wishes,

Donna
Erasmus (Raz) + Euclid + Heimdall,
Living in Germany
maine_coonz
Posts: 36
Joined: Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:10 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by maine_coonz »

Dear All,

We buried Raz this afternoon.

He had a 6.5cm dia. abdominal tumour, plus other complications. None of it was related to his tail trauma.

He will be sorely missed. He was a really, really cool cat. He would have been four this June.
Erasmus (Raz) + Euclid + Heimdall,
Living in Germany
Christine
Moderator
Posts: 4089
Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 3:50 pm
Location: Sautee Nacoochee, GA

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by Christine »

I am so sorry to hear of his passing. His life and the challenges you faced together leaves such a legacy of commitment and love that will help so many others. He was lucky to have you and you were blessed to have him in your life. Take care. :angel:
Image
Christine... and Bailey, playing at the Bridge
?/1999 - 10/25/08
User avatar
CarolC
Moderator
Posts: 13698
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2003 7:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by CarolC »

I do not know why these things have to happen. This is the third time I know of a pet who was disabled, where the owners went to the absolute max and beyond to help their pet, and succeeded against immeasurable odds, then a short time later the pet was lost to something else entirely. I do not know why this has to happen to these people or these pets. I am so sorry he is gone after all you went through. How much you must have loved him to do all that you did. I am really, really, really sorry. :cry:
User avatar
critters
Founding Member
Posts: 14360
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2001 7:00 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by critters »

I'm sorry for your loss. :cry: What happened to my Koi was similar, and it REALLY stunk.
mollysmum
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:22 am

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm sc

Post by mollysmum »

I was so sorry to read about Raz. He was a real inspiration to many of us who had beloved pets also struggling with similar problems. This page was a lifeline to me in the early days. Unfortunately we also had to put our sweet Molly down last November. She had battled so hard and for so long, and had even overcome many of her incontinence issues. However the damage to her bowel and bladder was too much and she was having constant bladder infections (every month) which left her in so much pain each time. She often wouldn't let us know how much pain she was in, we could just tell the signs and knew she had another infection. In the end we decided her quality of life was much more important and that it was time to let go. But at least we know that for her short life (3yrs) she was HUGELY loved and had been happy. May the sun be perpetually shining now on Raz as it is with Molly, forever in our hearts. x
GoshaTheCat
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:08 pm

Re: Cat: broken pelvis+tail, eating+pee+poo problems, I'm scared

Post by GoshaTheCat »

Hi there, I read your posts as well as your blog regarding Erasmus. What a lovely kitty he was and owners you were to take care of him!

My cat Gosha has a similar injury, and from my research online, this seems to be somewhat rare as you are the *only* other person I could find with a similar story! Gosha was presumed to be hit by a car 3 weeks ago, has sacroiliac luxations (which I understand in simple terms could be called a fractured pelvis) and a tail pull injury. Gosha is on cage rest and while his mobility is improving greatly (he is standing and walking in his doggie crate), the main problem is his bathroom situation. He has basically not been able to urinate or pass stool on his own since the accident and we have been expressing his bladder 2-3 times a day (sometimes on our own, other times with help of vet). He often postures over the kitty litter in his crate and usually nothing happens, which is heartbreaking. Two times I've seem him posture and a tiny dribble of urine came out (I wasn't sure if he caused this or this was leakage), one time I saw him posture and a very small and quick stream of urine came out, which seemed more promising. We find occasional very, very small clumps of urine in his box or small urine stains in his cage, and since we haven't otherwise noticed leakage, I'm hoping that these are also times when he's tried to urinate and at least a little something came out. Once I also noticed him posture and it appeared he was squeezing a small piece of stool out, but I did have to ultimately pull it out and otherwise we'e just noticed small pieces of stool here and there in his crate - about 1-2 small pieces per day, not as much as normal, but at least something. Miracle of miracles, when I woke up this morning I found several clumps of urine in his litter, which added up to be a pretty good size (but still not normal)! Again, I didn't see this happen, but since we haven't really noticed leakage I am hoping this means he was able to get this out himself.

Gosha is on Prazosin to relax his sphincter, Gabapentin and Buphrenorphine for pain, and Miralax and psyllium husk powder to loosen his stool. He's eating wet food only. We did not opt for surgery to repair his luxations, which I kind of regret in case it is contributing to the issue, but it would have been $5000-7500 USD.

I am very interested in your experience with Erasmus since it seems so similar to Gosha's. From what I've read it seems much more common for cats to have the kind of nerve damage that causes incontinence, whereas it seems both Gosha and Erasmus have/had the kind where they retain the urine and need to be expressed regularly.

I am curious if you have any recommendations for us or what some of the turning points were for you and timeframes.. We love Gosha so much but it sure is exhausting with his current care and haven't gotten to the point where we have to think about what to do if we're away, etc.
Post Reply