The part that bothers me is when you didn’t take the cat in because she seemed TOO hurt.
I work at an animal ER. It always comes down to this:
if you have to ask, then yes.
I’d rather be out the $100 the vet might charge to say “He’s fine” than spend the rest of my life wondering if he might still be alive if I’d taken him in. YMMV.
Another thought, cats can have a heart problem where they throw small clots. They can be painful and have trouble walking. The clot can sometimes dislodge on it’s own and the animal may appear to recover but the underlying heart problem is still there and the problem will happen again. Please read up on thromboembolism in cats.
I’m all for supporting impoverished vets, but I think that’s a bit much. I think there’s something to be said for doing your best to determine if something might be serious before you rush off to the vet for every cough, sneeze, or vomit.
If I feel sick, I note my symptoms, read up on them, ask around, and see if they improve or get worse. If I’m not getting better, I’ll go to the doctor. Applying that same standard that I use for myself to a pet doesn’t seem unreasonable. Now, obviously, there are some types of symptoms where waiting to see if they improve is obviously not the best course of action, but no need to throw common sense out the window.
Cardiac disease and its consequences were my first thought too, after reading the OP.
If the cat is better, then fine, whatever it was it passed. I would at the very least leave a message or try to contact its regular vet, who may know more about its medical history and whatever it may be at risk for than us. Vet may say “Oh, it’s probably X based on Y” or “make an appointment soon”.
Sure, but this is obviously more than a “cough, sneeze, or vomit.” Unfortunately, a cat can’t tell you about the pain in his chest or his pounding headache, and most pet owners aren’t very good at diagnostics.
I notice that **Hilarity N. Suze **hasn’t been back with an update. I hope that’s not bad news.
Cats and pets do have ambulance services - their owners. It’s one thing to call the vet and ask about how to bring the animal in with a minimum of harm, but this
… is like leaving the kid down and then not calling the ambulance.
And if moving the patient in the process hurts, so be it. Get some medical advice, but then do it.
The thing about cats: they’re stoic to the point of being severely at risk when they actually show distress.
Yeah. I don’t understand the mentality of starting a thread and then basically doing nothing for the animal. It’s frustrating to know that there’s an animal in pain, and that a vet has said to take the animal in, and know that the person is doing nothing to help it. Kind of reminds me of the dying deer thread.
I’d like to know how kitty is, too - I’d like to know what kind of problem would cause symptoms like that.
First of all: The cat is currently fine, back to his usual routine of pouncing on things and taking naps, and currently prowling around my keyboard.
I have to say, I did call the emergency vet. And they were a lot more understanding than you guys about my reluctance to take a cat who didn’t even like to be touched and wrestle him into a cat carrier for a car trip. They asked lots of questions, came to no conclusions, except that it was probably safe for me to wrestle him into the cat carrier etc., and ended up by saying that I probably ought to bring him in “for observation.” By that time he had indicated he could still move fast when he wanted to, and he was still not withdrawing (as he typically does when injured), so I did not take him in. “Observation” would mean that he was in a cage, and while the staff would undoubtedly check on him occasionally, but so would we, and we know him.
They had me look at his pupils, asked if he was drooling, if his tongue was swollen, if his gums were red, if he was panting, had me time his breathing, and had me check to see if his stomach felt hard.
I don’t know what, if anything, they eliminated by talking to me.
I took him in (still reluctant) to his regular vet. He had a physical and all his shots in May, and since then the only change is that he has lost a couple of ounces. She also said to watch him and bring him in if it happens again. We are also supposed to watch him for further weight loss, but we had a hot couple of days and the heat can diminish cats’ appetites, so that didn’t worry her a lot. She also seemed kind of reluctant to guess about what might have happened to him. She didn’t think it was an insect sting because there would have been swelling, someplace, and cats tend to lick/scratch the area where they are stung. If it was bad enough to cause nonlocalized pain she thought there would be some other symptoms.
This cat is stoic, but all his life the tipoff that he’s really in bad shape has been that he avoids us. The worse shape he’s in, the harder he is to find. And he was right there–and perfectly comfortable, apparently, as long as he wasn’t being touched.
So a vet has seen him, and it’s still a mystery. Whatever it was, he’s recovered.
Glad to hear he’s back to himself. While you may feel it was a bit of a waste of time and money to get him a checkup after the fact, that was still a good idea.
As an ER tech who talks with people over the phone all the time, I have to say that my previous anecdote of “if you have to ask, then yes” applies to about 95% of the calls I answer. That other 5% is competent enough for me to go over a list of things the owner can check while I wait on the phone. Of course someone posting on the SDMB would fall in that 5% of owners who sound like they can identify the cat’s gums and follow instructions! 
Honestly, the vast majority of people who call before coming to the ER are looking for a diagnosis that’s impossible (and malpractice) to give. I’m also in a huge city, where it’s not that difficult to get 24 hour care that’s not so far away, either. In more rural areas, some are lucky to have a place even an hour away. Sometimes we’re just so busy we can’t take the time to go over a list of symptoms to check over the phone, so we have to tell people we just need to see the pet, and have to get back to the one that’s crashing right now…
So it’s not just our advice that you ignore, it’s your vet’s too?
I’ve had three instances of cats howling unexpectedly. One had to be euthanized within a day due to deep-vein thrombosis. One seemed fine a few hours later, but the vet failed to recognize that she had been having a stroke - which we found out during her necropsy a few months later. The third was having a life-threatening urinary blockage that was fixed because we got him to the vet immediately.
So from my personal experience, 2 of the 3 cats who acted like that died from the thing that caused their discomfort. The third would have if we didn’t rush him to the vet.
Keep in mind that even though he seems fine now, whatever the problem was may very well return. Ignoring it won’t help him.
What do you want the woman to do? She already took the cat to the vet, and was sent home. Is she supposed to take him back in for exploratory surgery? Perhaps a MRI? Maybe she should leave him at the vet’s for the foreseeable future, just in case something happens. Honestly, people. It’s a cat. They’re weird. There is no way, after the described conversation with the emergency vet, I would have taken the cat in for “observation” which is exactly what** Hilarity **describes–putting the cat in a cage, where he will be checked on periodically, stressing the cat out greatly in the meantime. The cat’s fine. If sometime in the future, the cat dies mysteriously, well, I’m sure it will be ALL HILARITY’S FAULT for her gross negligence in this little event, and you can all tell her what a horrible, cat-killing bitch she is then.
Take the cat in immediately next time…and hopefully anybody else reading this thread will do the same in similar circumstances.
Good to hear kitty’s back to normal (well, cat normal).