Augie's Near Death Experience

During the month and a half leading up to his neutering, I had been paying more and more attention to the feral cat in my backyard, and dreaming and scheming how to get it spayed or neutered, which until the last day still seemed nearly impossible.  

As a result, I was paying less attention to my closest cat Augie, who has lived with me mostly inside for 7 years now.

Augie may have been developing very serious urinary issues, partly driven by jealousy.  While I was preoccupied with the new cat, Augie often didn't urinate for a day or two, and when he did it often seemed too small or otherwise abnormal.  I suspected this was a important issue, but I was then feeling it was more important to get the backyard feral, who I thought to be female, spayed.  Otherwise, I'd have kittens, and I didn't want to have another Kitten Emergency as I did 28 years ago.  And it might not be good for the feral cat herself either.

Only after I finally released the newly neutered male "feral" into the backyard (it turned out to be male), I looked online and discovered to my horror that not only was non-urination a serious issue in a male cat, it could become fatal within a matter of hours.

Augie didn't seem that bad.  He didn't seem bad at all.  But informed sources say that it what is often like.  Cats hide their systemic illnesses.  They don't want anyone, especially their guardians, other cats, and dogs, to know that they are not fully up to speed.

I tried desperately to get Augie to drink more water and pee.  By Sunday afternoon, just after I had released the feral cat to his home in the  back yard, Augie was now noticeably more lethargic than usual.  I brought a water bowl to him in his bed with an ice cube.  He sipped a little but barely enough to make a difference.  That little bit of sipping was the best I got him to do on many other occasions with different attempts to make an appealing watery drink.

I tried to get him to see my family vet.  As I feared, they told me I should take my cat to an emergency clinic immediately.  Other than that, the soonest appointment they could make would be in 11 days.  They did not currently have a doctor in the office.

I was not happy with my last visit to the emergency clinic, so I researched some other ones.  If anything, they would likely be even more expensive.  Online sources said that treating a cat with blocked urethra costs $750-$1500, and $3000 if surgery is required.  In my previous experiences with emergency treatments, I had come to believe that afterwards the fundamental problem (possibly behavioral in origin) would still not be solved, so another emergency treatment would be needed in a month or two, and on from there, each treatment not only being increasingly costly, but increasingly invasive and possibly making many underlying issues worse.

Fortunately, just as I was calling the vet, Augie have me a present, a clean and typical looking urination.  Small but clean.  So now it looked like it was not actually an emergency yet.  But we were not out of the woods either, and radical changes would probably be needed to restore Augie to continuing good health.

That night, after yet another failed attempt to get Augie to drink some liquid, this time a bone broth, I decided to go ahead with a radical change.  I decided to restore his outdoor privileges, which had been withheld for the previous 26 months because of his FIV diagnosis.  I was now doubtful this would kill other cats any time soon.  It might kill Augie, but it might save him too, and if it didn't save him it would certainly have been his dying wish.  After 26 months, he was still begging to go outside.  So I let him go, at around 10PM.  He went in and out a few times, but I purposely left him out as long as possible.  I went to bed and set my alarm for 3:30 am so I could call him in well before dawn at 6:30 am.  He did come right in when called at 3:30 am, looking better than he had in weeks.

Now, after 4 days of being let out mostly whenever he wanted (except within an hour of dawn or dusk--the two times when 90% of all catfights occur) he seems much much better.  He seems better than he was 26 months ago.  Maybe not fully up to speed yet, though he mostly looks that way, but well on the road to recovery.

With the strong instinct to mark all his newly restored outside territories, I believe Augie has squeezed out his bladder and prostate much better than in years.  This new regime is working with his instincts rather than against them.  While inside, Augie does not want the trouble that comes from peeing or spraying in the wrong place.  He decidedly doesn't like peeing in the litterbox.  He wants to save up his pee for marking the outside, even if he had not been outside marking for months.