HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I'd been worried for the last month when the shelter vet saw odd structures in the blown eye of our last foster cat. (Neighbors across the street were moving, their mom was supposed to take the cat and changed her mind an hour before they were due to drive across the state. My husband couldn't say no.) That vet thought it might be cancer so her foster status was put on hold, but the shelter managed to make arrangements with a benefactor to get her checked out by a specialist. The good news is there is no cancer, it's just a detached retina. She's completely blind in that eye, but it's not causing her pain. We think she was kicked or was hit by a car several years ago. My husband agreed to take the cat without me present, and never got any contact information for the people who had her!


Unfortunately, one of our cats turned yellow tonight. The bloodwork shows it's not liver failure (so no fatty liver), but that makes it all the more weird. Aside from what you would expect in a dehydrated cat, the only thing really off was her bilirubin count, which was sky high. She's in great spirits, not really much of a fever, and she ate, so they gave her fluids and we see the vet in the morning. (She phoned in orders since it was so late.) Hoping it's something easy to fix. It'll either be a blood infection, or something physically wrong with her gallbladder. We'll need a blood smear (possibly sending it out to a pathologist) and a urinalysis for sure, and depending on what those show possibly more blood tests or an ultrasound.


Life never gets easier, does it?

I am so sorry Wode! This last year has been so tough on you, I was hoping you'd get a break.
You guys have such amazing hearts to take on all the animals and extreme cases that you do.
*hugs* Sending good vibes to the kitty.

hugs I'm glad the foster cat is ok and so sorry to hear about your kitty. I hope whatever it is has an easy remedy.

Vet was very optimistic. Thinks it's autoimmune. Took a blood sample (argh that tech! There is now a marble sized lump because she kept missing the vein...) to look for anemia and we may need testing past that, but for now she's stable. Subcutaneous fluids twice a day, antibiotics just in case, drug to stimulate her liver, and an appetite booster.

Sample came back as anemic, he didn't see anything that looked like evidence of a blood infection or parasites, so he thinks it's fully autoimmune. We'll be picking up steroids later, which should get her back to normal.

Fingers crossed the steroids help, and I hope your animals stay healthy for a long while! I think you deserve a break.

With how many animals we have and how old they're getting, statistically we're doing better than we should be. We're also extremely lucky that hubby works for the shelter and they now have a public clinic, so when something happens it's not nearly as financially devastating as it would be at a regular vets, and they squeeze us in quick. I really would find individual homes for most of our cats if I could, but we ended up taking them originally because it had come down to us or euthanasia, and we've had them so long almost all are getting to the double digits and are seniors. (Except for Gracie - she could have had a new home a hundred times over when she was a kitten two and a half years ago, but we had been attached to each other for so long that I couldn't let go. On one hand I feel guilty for keeping her when she didn't need it, but on the other I couldn't imagine life without her, she keeps me stable.)

Anyways, Midge is feeling okay tonight. Caught her eating dry food. Has not gotten any more yellow! She'll be 9 in April, and was in the last groups of foster kittens I had taken from the shelter. (As opposed to the cats we've stumbled across in the years since.) Out of 16 kittens, 2 stayed healthy and were adopted, 9 died - including Midge's brother and sister, and I kept the remaining 5 after the shelter rejected them for being too sickly. I had been doing subcutaneous fluids and force feeding three times a day for three straight months to keep them alive until they were able to recover. Thomasina (Seena) was put to sleep at age four because of constantly swollen and bleeding paw pads that made her completely lame and that would not resolve with any treatment (no vet could even tell us what was causing it), Penny never came out of anesthesia after a fluid filled mass formed in her abdomen that was the size of all her other organs combined (my vet had never lost an animal to anesthesia in 23 years, he was devastated - he had also never seen anything like that mass before and couldn't tell us what it was), and Clio had stomatitis and had all her teeth pulled and then died two and a half years ago - a week before Gracie came to us - from a collapsed lung lobe due to severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that would not respond to any medication. Elda is still alive and kicking even though she also has stomatitis like her sister Clio and goes through vomiting spells every few months (again, vets can't tell us why). Midge was always the healthy one, 8 and a half years without any issues whatsoever. It sadly makes perfect sense that she also would develop something autoimmune like every single of one her surviving fostermates did.

Here's our little jezebel. (Even though all our cats are fixed, Midge has always been extremely popular with the boys. ) They're all acting weird because she's acting weird! The whole house is in disarray with her not feeling well.

She has such a sweet face, she strikes me as a cuddler, maybe it's those bedroom eyes in the picture. I am glad it was something treatable.

Aww, what a sweet looking girl. I love older kitties/pets in general. It sounds like she had a rough start and is doing pretty well, all things considered!

That is the face of a cat that will destroy everything you own, LOL. I know that face. Hope she gets better!!!

soilentgringa wrote:That is the face of a cat that will destroy everything you own, LOL. I know that face. Hope she gets better!!!

She's probably the best cat in the house, actually!


She's no longer yellow and she's eating more often, but she still doesn't seem right for some reason...

She may just need some time to get back to normal. It is great to hear she is doing better!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

It's likely FIP. We got her in to a different vet today, they did a chest tap and she has yellow fluid. We're going to put her sleep now....

I am SO sorry for your loss. :grouphug:

I'm so sorry, Wode. hugs