The Yellow Cat Catastrophe

“A cat under stress,” the veterinarian solemnly told me, “will find a place to hide. It sometimes refuses to eat and will literally starve itself to death.”

Seriously? A stressed out cat? Hey, I am looking at a pretty stressful veterinarian bill, and you don’t find me hiding under the bed refusing a hamburger. Evidently, however, my cat got upset and went off of her food until the situation became critical. At least, that’s what we hope happened — because if it isn’t that then she has a serious liver problem and we might not be able to save her. If I didn’t know her habits well, I might not have even noticed her problems, because she still acted frisky.

Meet McGill. She is the beautiful calico cat who waltzed up to our back door several years ago and insinuated herself into our lives.

Her name is McGill, she calls herself Lil, but everyone knows her as Nancy.

Yes, I know that “McGill” sounds like a masculine name. When I was trying to think of something more interesting than “Kitty” to name her, the Beatle’s song “Rocky Racoon” began to play on the radio blasting out the lyrics, “Her name was Magil and she called herself Lil but everyone knew her as Nancy.” I couldn’t use “Lil” or “Nancy,” because they were already taken by human friends (who might be offended by having a fat cat named after them). Her name became McGill … either the Beatles or I have a trouble with spelling.

If you are one of those people who don’t like cats because you think they are “aloof,” you might change your mind around McGill. I have dog-loving friends who think this cat is really a terrier in disguise. No one comes into my house without getting a warm welcome from this cat. In fact, when most people leave my house they fully believe that they alone are McGill’s favorite human. The truth is that this cat is an attention hound. She will do anything for an ear scratching or a belly-rub.

While McGill often likes to play hide-and-seek, she is first on the scene when a can of food is opened. If she hears a door open, she rushes to greet visitors. At night, she takes her half of the bed out of the middle. I know all of these things, but I wasn’t paying attention.

My husband was traveling for work and I was knee-deep in Share A Square afghans for the week. I didn’t notice that McGill wasn’t under foot. It wasn’t until my husband returned and the cat didn’t show up to scold him for leaving that I noticed anything amiss.

I picked her up and realized she had lost a dramatic amount of weight in just the last few days. When I took her to the food bowl, she sniffed the food and gagged (throwing up a very tiny amount of clear foam). It was time to visit the veterinarian immediately.

When the veterinarian’s assistant examined McGill, she chirped, “Oh, my. You have a yellow cat.” Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were not. It was the equivalent of the astronaut John Swigert nonchalantly saying, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Her tone belied the fact that we had a cat-astrophe.

Have you seen on the television hospital shows how quickly the doctors and nurses move into action when someone yells, “She’s coding.” That’s what happens at my vet’s office when someone says, “yellow cat.” It signifies bad news.

I have a cat at home who is offended by that.

I resemble that remark!

They aren’t talking about that kind of yellow. McGill’s skin had turned yellow, and you could see it best inside her ears. The veterinarian said that when big cats lose a lot of weight quickly (she had gone from 14 pounds to about 8.8 pounds) they get a condition called “hepatic lipidosis,” or “fatty liver.” It causes the jaundice. Numerous tests and x-rays showed that she was otherwise healthy. The doctor said it was difficult to tell at this point whether she was starving herself or has a problem with her liver — which will mean the death knell tolls. But, because she was so active and “happy,” he felt hopeful that we could save her.

What had stressed her? We have no clue. It could have been that my husband and I had each gone on business trips (though that is not unusual). It could have been that she got in a cat fight at the food bowl several weeks ago and a bite she got had abscessed (though it was almost healed). It could have been that we recently changed our brand of cat food. Or, it could have been that she doesn’t like the color purple. I’m definitely not going to risk showing her the vet bill!

McGill now has a feeding tube inserted in her neck that goes straight into her stomach.

We are NOT amused.

Over the next several days, I have to feed her a nasty smelling mush through that tube every few hours. Our hope is that she will re-gain her appetite and start to be on the mend. If stress wasn’t her problem, I will know it in a few days. I don’t even want to think that far ahead.

I’m trying to coax McGill into eating. You should see me on all fours hovering over the food bowl. I smack my lips and murmur, “Yum, yum” in hopes that I can convince her to come out from under my desk and give it a try. So far, no dice (perhaps the look on my face tells her the true tale of what I think about this food), but I’ll keep trying.

If you are a pet owner, the lesson to take away from my story is this:

Observe your pet’s habits so that you know how they normally act. If they deviate from routine (especially if a cat starts hiding), have the veterinarian check them sooner rather than later.

If I had waited a day or two to see if she got better, it would have been too late for McGill. Excuse me. It’s time to go make some mush. Yum, yum. Keep your fingers crossed for her, won’t you now?

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Optimism Virus to Battle the Cold Virus
2. One Comment Equals One Can To The Food Bank
3. Thursday Thirteen #10—Excuses
4. Only Good is served at Café Garibaldi
5. Haunted House in Black and White

Tagged as: Critters