have you ever had a medical scare with one of your cats?

I have had a scare with several of my cats. Once Piglet was found drooling and pawing at her mouth and a capsule was found next to her chewed up. I grabbed her up and took her to the vet where I worked and the doctor gave her a charcoal liquid that is used for poisonings. She was not a happy cat!!! She is orange and white tabby longhair and we had to force this stuff down her throat and she fought and ended up with it all over her and us. It turned out that my brother had dropped a stool softener and she chewed it up. Fortunatly it is harmless, but very bitter and made her drool. She was fine!!!! Then I had a cat named Fluke and I came home and found him very lethargic and pale. I rushed him in and he was diagnosed with lymphoma, and spent 8 months on chemo before he had had enough and stopped eating. I had him in hospital for a week and he still would not eat, so I let him go. He knew it was time. I also had a dog that during play I notice he had some brusies on him tummy and I took him to work with me the next day and turns out he had a immune disease that is fatal if not treated, and sometimes the die anyway. He lasted 5 years on medication.

Yes I have. Once we decided to take our cat outside seeing as that we had brought a cat leash and collar a couple days ago and since she is always so eager to go outside I said "Well, why not?" She was outside for a while, then a huge pick-up truck had scared her. She rapidly jumped into the bushes nearrby our house. We had to use her cat food in order to lure her out. When she came out her left or right paw nail ( can't remember which one since it was quite awhile ago) had gotten stuck into her paw. We went to the vet immediately and he told us that the procedure could possibly disable our cat from using her hurt paw forever. I sat in the doctor's waiting room hoping and praying that my cat would be able to walk again. When they brought her back..she was fine! The procedure went well and she was back to her normal self once we got her home again. =)

I had an experience like this as a young cat owner, and my parents weren't used to having cats either. We had a female cat and all of the sudden she was dragging herself across the room, meowing in agony (or so we thought) and she was hanging with no tension in her mussles when we picked her up. She kept meowing and shouting so we took her to the vet straight away. She laughed and turned to us that she was in heat, but she did agree that it was good to take her in. She did have quite heavy symptoms [em/lol[/em].

A few years ago one of my older cats got really sick and I came up with the hundred bucks the emergency vet wanted just to walk in the door. In 24 hours he has back to normal and everything was just fine. Except my pocket book that is. I had over reacted and it cost me a hundred bucks!

About 6 years ago my black cat Smokey started to get fat. At first I thought she was just eating too much. About 2 weeks later she started to have difficulty walking due to the extra weight. I decided to take her to the vet. They did an xray on her and found this huge max growing inside her. They didn't know what it was and told me to prepare for the worst. I agreed to an operation and she came through it fine. She had a uterus infection which caused her baby sack to start filling with fluid. I was happy we caught it in time. The vet said if the sack had burst, it probably would have killed her, but she is still alive and well today. She will be 14 years old next February.

I have had a scare with my cat, but it was a lot different than yours! My husband (then, boyfriend) and I had been living in our house for about a year. We both wanted a pet. We would really have liked to have a dog, but it just wouldnt have been fair. We dont have space for a dog to run around and we werent home often enough to give a dog the attention it needs. My husband suggested a cat, so I agreed. You have to understand this is my first pet, ever. We went to a local shelter and picked out a kitten. He walked right up to us and was very loving. We brought him home that night. He was still tiny, but lots of fun. Within 3 days, we noticed he wasnt eating anything - he had only eaten a very little bit since we brought him home. We could also tell that he was sick. Saturday morning, we started calling around to see if a vet would be able to see him right away. We were able to find one, thank goodness! She gave us medicine and vitamin drops for him. Not long after, his cold was all cleared up. But he had an infection in his eyes. So we took him back. The vet gave us some gel to put in his eyes to take care of that. She also told us that she had never expected to see him again. She thought our little kitty would die before he got better! It was pretty scary to bring home my first pet and see him be so sick!

When The Doctor (yes, that was my cat's name) was 11, I discovered a lump around his thyroid. After the vet listed the 3 choices - the first two cost around $2000 and involved him traveling to College Station about 100 miles from Austin, I picked door #3, that cost about $350 and could be done in town. That was to surgucally remove the thyroid. Turned out that door #3 was the correct choice because it turned out to be a malignant cancer (extreamly rare amoung cats.) Now, I lost him of kidney failure the following spring, and I still miss the silly boy, but he'd be 25 now. I allowed the vet to take tissue samples to see if there had been any cancer spread - because the cancer was so rare amoung cats, but it hadn't.

very fine