Thank you.

Ginny

I wish her and her cats well.

Sally

Your daughter's vet may also be willing to work out a reasonable payment plan. It's even possible that your daughter may be able to barter part of the vet expenses by doing some sort of work for the vet. It never hurts to ask.

While I applaud your commitment to supporting your daughter's adult responsibilities, have you considered making a loan to her yourself to cover the vet bills? You can uphold your values by having her sign a promissory note with an appropriate interest rate applied to the loan.

It certainly makes sense for your daughter to find other homes for the three kittens, given the fact that she can't even afford the proper care and keeping of her original cat. Unexpected vet expenses are part of the responsibility of pet ownership for which your daughter must be prepared. Even if your daughter were in a financial position to provide for four felines, it seems likely that the kittens either carried the older cat's current illness into her household or that they caused the older cat so much stress that she fell ill on her own. In any scenario, the responsible thing would be to rehome the kittens and do whatever is necessary to try to cure the older cat.

I am wishing the best possible outcome for your daughter's ailing cat.

Laurie

The offers I could make are to adopt two of her three kittens and she find a home for the third or bring her sick kitty here either until she gets well or forever. I had been planning to get new kittens now anyway.

Even with me taking the kittens it leaves the large vet bill to deal with. In the end she has to make the decision I know. Thanks for the links to possible financial help.

Ginny

Laurie

If I do loan her the money to get Rainey treated I still wonder at what point people make the decision they can't put out any more money on their beloved pet. It's a hard thing to say and do but one decision lots of people must face.

Ginny

Unfortunately, to treat hepatic lipidosis, it is extremely expensive and the outcome is not guaranteed. I am still paying off the vet bills to try & keep him alive, but unfortunately I no longer have my kitty. Good luck - it is such a sad disease and a terrible way to lose a furry friend.

It is none of my business, but since you offered the information, I agree that you do not have an obligation to support your thirty-something daughter. It is possible to be loving and supportive without opening up your checkbook.

I can certainly open my house to these two cats to see if Rainy can pull herself through without futher testing. I really feel that stress is the cause and that further testing will not turn up a disease process in place.

If she can beat this fatty liver disease with minimal intervention great, if not she will pass away, as my friend said.

I wonder what the odds are that the jaundice was caused by a disease rather than the stress brought on by 3 new kittens invading her home 6 weeks ago. I think it's the kittens.

Thanks again to everyone for your advice and suggestions. We appreciate it all!!

Ginny

I was about to suggest this as well. My cat went through hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) last summer as well, and jaundice was one of the major symptoms, as was not eating.

If she can beat this fatty liver disease with minimal intervention great, if not she will pass away, as my friend said.

How long has the cat not been eating? How severe is the jaundice? Has the cat been vomiting at all?

With my cat, recovery involved several expensive IV's and a couple nights of hospital stay, and they had to insert a tube through her neck, which we then had to squeeze food and medication into her stomach, since she wouldn't eat on her own for a very long time. The tube stayed her in neck for about 6 weeks. All in all, getting her healed cost at least $3000 (we stopped counting after a while, to be honest). It also involved a lot of time and dedication -- we had to feed her through that tube in her throat every 4 or 5 hours, which involved coming home from work to do it, and cleaning up a lot of barf. On the upside, she's perfectly healthy now. Our cat was a fairly severe case of liver failure, though -- if the cat in question isn't as far gone, maybe it won't be that bad. I don't mean to scare you, but if your daughter's cat does have hepatic lipidosis, it is expensive to heal, it involves a lot of time, care, and money, and there's NO guarantee that it will have a positive result; many cats still die.

This friend also had been told by a vet that cats will either live or die; let them decide.

The cat isn't making a choice to die. Right now it's so sick, it can't eat -- which will 100% kill it. It feels crummy, so it doesn't eat, which means its body processes its body's fat, which its liver can't handle, which causes the liver to go into failure, which makes the cat even sicker, which makes it continue to not eat... It's a vicious cycle. YOU have to force the cat to eat, either through medication or the use of a feeding tube. Your daughter's vet should be talking to her about her options at this point, IF her cat does indeed have hepatic lipidosis.

P.S. If you live in MA, I can foster the kittens until I can find a home for them.

One of my cats had hepatic lipidosis after several days of vomiting and not eating, several years ago when he was probably about 12~13 years old, and he got better. The only treatment I remember was that I had to force-feed him many times a day with a special nutritious canned cat food. I think it was one of Hill's brand that the vet recommended. I had to buy it from the vet.

We didn't have a tube in the cat or anything; I would just take a dollop of the cat food on my index finger, make the cat open his mouth, smear the food inside, and hold his mouth more or less closed just for a few seconds until I could see that he wouldn't be able to spit much out. Of course, he hated it, but since his life was at stake, I didn't let that bother me. I didn't feed a lot at any one time, but I did feed him little bits like that very, very frequently--just so long as it didn't make him vomit. As I recall, the vet told me to have a goal of getting the contents of one 6-oz. can per day into him.

It may be that my cat was not so far gone and that was why the treatment could be so simple, but it's worth consulting the vet and asking if something like what I did might work, as your daughter can't afford expensive treatment. I don't remember how long I had to feed my cat like that, but he eventually got better and is hale and hearty now at 16.

I think what the others say about removing the kittens from her vicinity, at least until she is well again, makes sense. Even one new kitten would be stressful, though most cats get over that in a week or so, but 3 is too many unless the older cat has protection from their rambunctiousness. She doesn't need any more stress while she is ill. If your daughter can't get rid of the kittens to good homes, at least confine them to one room and then give plenty of attention to the sick cat and she can get used to the kittens bit by bit after she is well again.

I say give plenty of (quiet) attention because it is reassuring to the cat and helps it fight its illness. I once had a pregnant female cat who wouldn't eat for 2 weeks, due to a bad cold. She wasn't a "cuddle-cat," but I spent a lot of time just being beside her saying pleasant and reassuring things and stroking her from time to time. All the vet did was give her a big injection of glucose (I think it was) in the loose skin at the back of her neck every other day to keep her hydrated, while I fed her food from time-to-time as I did for the male cat described above, though less often, since she had the glucose. (This was in Japan and the vet's treatments were a bit primitive.) At night I kept her on my pillow beside my face--something she wouldn't normally want to do. She not only pulled through, she gave birth to 5 kittens and nursed them and they all lived. She herself was all skin and bones; you could "see" her spine bones for awhile. The vet said it was just love that had saved her, and he could hardly believe the kittens made it, too.

So don't give up. These are only my personal thoughts, but if it were my cat, I would be considering whether or not I would opt for surgery and /or chemotherapy even if the cat were found to have cancer. To tell the truth, I'm not sure I would put my cat through that even if I could afford it. And if I had decided I would not seek aggressive treatment if a cat of mine had cancer, I would probably not see any point in having all those expensive diagnostic tests for it. Not out of cheapness; we have already probably put about $3000 or more into keeping the cat that had fatty liver healthy over the years, what with hospitalization for dehydration, 4 operations on mast cell tumors, and other less important things.

Of course it's always good to know exactly what you are up against, but we all have a point where things can become financially impossible. So if your daughter can't go high-tech, why not try any low-tech treatment the vet thinks might do the trick?

If Rainey gets worse and worse and doesn't respond to any reasonably inexpensive treatment the vet can suggest, if she does have cancer and starts having pain, then it might be time to put her out of her misery, but I certainly would not give up yet. I think it natural that the vet wants to do every test possible; that would be fine if we were all rich. However, as things are, if he/she can't think of any less expensive treatment to at least try before giving up, I think I would look for another vet. Fast. Hepatic lipidosis IS fatal if nothing is done about it.

Best wishes for Rainey's complete recovery. She is still young and, hopefully, basically strong. Let us all know what happens. We care!

They decided to go a route of an inexpensive but high maintenance treatment that involved special food with medicine mixed in, and an IV bag treatment. The vet showed her how to do the IV (in the shoulder) and she did it at home. It was about 8 days straight of this food and twice a day IV bag.

At the end, they took her in for one more blood draw, and the liver numbers were fine.

They still do not know the cause and expensive tests may have pinpointed it. Could have been bioligical, or something she ate, or a strange infection from a mosquito bite. No one will know. In the end, the treatment above ended up being way cheaper (messy and complicated but cheap), and in her case it worked.

I would also encourage bartering for services, this will not only get her cat the much needed vet care-it will also help her to become more responsible for her actions.

I applaud your sticking to your guns on not loaning the money, in the long run it will help her.

I've passed articles on to my daughter but she is the one that has to make the decisions.

I would certainly hope she has gotten the message that bringing home 3 more mouths to feed when she can't care for the health needs of her first kitty wasn't a good idea. I don't know what she'll do about the kittens but I'm afraid our sweet Rainy won't make it.

I'll be off work tomorrow and hopefully my daughter will talk with me after she talks to the vet.

Kids - ekk -- even as adults they have sooo much to learn.

Ginny

Of course my daughter was very sad about this but she knew she was making the right decision considering the cirumstances.

Thanks again for your concern.

Ginny

As for the kittens Ginny's daughter brought home - I would not jump on that too early...What if she found them starving in a parking lot or at a dumpster? Yes, it is more mouths to feed, but this could be an act of compassion. Definitely something I would do - and I own 10 cats!
Now, if she intends to keep them all, that is a different story. I hope the kittens are fostered and adopted out :)

Its nice that she was able to do the right thing. I hope everything gets better and she learns how to survive and be happy.

The original letter is from 2007. Does anyone know where Ginny is so we can find out where all 4 cats are today?

It seems that a spammer revived the thread to advertise something for jaundice treatment. Just thought I'd save you all the time of posting helpful suggestions on a very old thread.

i hope this helps. this is just what i did. i understand each situation is different. if your cat gets jaundice, remember that nutrition will be the highest priority in order to overcome it. the flu made my cat not eat for 7-8 days. i realized probably after 1-2days...thats all it takes for it to set in...but it does go away. keep them fed, even if they hate it. thank you all again. feel free to contact me. i owe it to anyone in this horrible situation. good luck