Sick cat

I've posted a bit on Facebook and Twitter about my cat Zeta being ill. Last Sunday she began showing signs of nausea, there was some drooling and quite a bit of miaowing. During the night she got worse, she had what looked like epileptic seizures at least twice during the night. After the last one, about 7 am, she was unable to move or focus her eyes on anything.

I took her to the vet, they ran blood tests and gave her IV nutrition. After a while she got better, was again able to focus. She had one more seizure while there, and she started getting bloody diarrhoea. On Wednesday she was released and seemed perfectly normal. The vet said it looked like poisoning, but none of us could figure out how she might have gotten poisoned. She's an indoor cat, we don't have mice, we have no new plants, and Arthas who is now 10 months old gnaws everything - so if there were something poisonous here he'd be getting ill, too.

Anyhow, we have been feeding her boiled fish. She started getting the drools again on Thursday, and yesterday when I spoke to the vet they said I should make sure to give her smaller portions. So last night after work I did - she got about 1-2 tablespoons of boiled fish per hour, and after the fourth feeding she even stopped trying to steal food from the other cats.

And then she got a seizure again, and a second one this night. Now she looks perfectly healthy and is begging for more food, but about two hours after her last feeding she started with the drool again.

I have no idea what causes this. The only thing I can come up with is to feed her small portions. Maybe the seizure isn't really a seizure, maybe it's her stomach cramping so hard that her whole body shakes, and the neurological symptoms she had on Monday were from her hitting her head while cramping. I don't know, and there seems to be no reasonable way for the vets to tell. They've been talking about spinal fluid samples and MRIs and things - but they're not sure it'll give them anything to go on, and the cost is pretty steep.

If she doesn't get better we will have to put her to sleep. I really don't want to do that, she's only eleven years old, and when she isn't cramping or drooling she seems so perfectly healthy and normal. I don't know what to do.

Sick cats, as in two of them.

Bad stuff: Tusse had a seizure like the ones Zeta has had. We called the vet, she said that this really looks like they have eaten something toxic to them. At this point I agree - it has to be either environmental or contagious, and they can't think of anything contagious that gives these symptoms. We went over all that we know they've eaten, and decided to restrict them to a small area in the flat and only feed them boiled fish. And not much of that, either.

I went through my bedroom, making sure that anything they might be tempted to get into was removed or put in cat-safe tins or otherwise unreachable for them. Then we brought all three of them into my bedroom (which is now equipped with a litterbox). At this point Zeta had already had a sort of half-seizure, where she didn't fall down spasming but was shaking a lot whiile standing up.

Shortly after we went down, Zeta got up and started chewing on the spiderplant that I'd also brought in - it's the only plant in the room; if I'm isolating them I'll do my best to do it well! Shortly thereafter she started making unhappy noises. But instead of following it up with shaking and seizing, she ran in under the bed and puked. I don't think I've ever been actually happy to have a cat puke under the bed, but this... it's the first time since she started getting ill that she's actually gotten rid of her nausea in the normal cat manner!

A few minutes ago, Calle brought some small portions of boiled fish down for them. We'll see how that works out. They were all hungry, they were begging for more, but we don't dare give them any bigger portions just yet.

If they do get better while restricted to this bedroom, we'll let them out into the living room tomorrow and see what happens. We'll basically have to let them into one room at a time, after we've done our best to clear it of anything they may have gotten into. But at least now that we know it's environmental, we have some way of dealing with it.