My cat is going downhill after surgery

Our 11 year old female neutered cat had surgery on Monday of this week due to a large hematoma in her left ear. Less than 24 hours later, she became listless, wouldn't eat or drink and could barely walk. We took her back to the vet and he gave her a sub q iv to hydrate her and ran blood tests (which showed nothing). Prior to the surgery, she seemed just fine except for the ear. We've taken her back to the vet every day this week and she's slipping away from us!!! Our vet can't give us any answer or reason for what's going on. We keep giving him money, he keeps giving her sub q iv's and she is not improving. We're terribly worried about her and afraid of what could be a negative outcome. Do you have any idea what could be going on? We just feel that something happened during surgery or that something happened due to the meds he gave us to give her when we brought her home. We're at a loss and afraid we're going to lose her!

Reply
Hi
Sadly going through surgery for any of us can have a negative effect on us. The drugs used may cause a allergic reaction, if there was some other weakness which was not known about certain organs could shut down. Sometimes if there was a lack of oxygen for a minute or two the brain may be affected and of course the heart too may have reacted badly towards the drugs.

The other possible cause is that a infection was picked up, we hear all the time about this happening to people in hospital and so I would assume is possible for a ct too.

Unfortunately when things like this happen all a vet can do is to support the cats system and hope that given time it picks up by itself. Hydration is one such support and I assume that your vet feels that there is nothing more that can be done.

I know how you feel though, you feel helpless and you expect that more can be done medically. However in a lot of cases this is just not true. I don’t know if your vet has done any other tests to check her heart and bloods etc. He may feel that this is too intrusive in her current condition i don’t know.

All you can do is too talk this all through with your vet. Your concerns and don’t be afraid to express how you feel. All vets are different; some are very good at passing information on and other s need coaxing. But the more he can tell you the more you will understand what is going on and this may help you with your worries.

I can’t say what the outcome will be for your cat. I have known cats to pull trough some very serious conditions and so i would always say don’t give up hope.

I hope you have a good outcome soon

Best wishes kate