[red_kittycat]

Thanks to those of you who answered my post re: my Abyssinian with suspected renal failure.

Her autopsy came back inconlusive. Her kidneys appeared healthy, though. Here are the vet's findings, although she has no idea what could have been the cause:

Intestinal and stomach walls were extremely thin
Little to no muscle tone throughout the digestive tract
Mild fluid accumulation around the digestive system
Mild plaque buildup in the pancreas
Here's the really weird part - bruising/bleeding in the lungs

The vet does not feel any type of injury may have caused these. But she's not sure WHAT did! She thinks the condition of the digestive tract caused the diarrhea, not vice versa.

Although the vet feels her findings are not typical of FIP, once the autopsy was inconclusive, I requested that tissue samples be sent to determine whether FIP was present, since we had FIP take some cats about 5 years ago...just paranoid now. The vet had preserved the samples in formaldehyde, so the lab can't be sure whether FIP was present or not. We're hoping by examining the tissues themselves that they may be able to make an educated guess as to whether the damage to the tissues was consistent with FIP.

Anyway, if anybody's ever heard of such a thing, please write back with advice!

 

[drjean]

not renal failure

Odd findings!

Hope you don't mind if I post this to my veterinary board to see if they have any ideas what might have caused the lung changes. The only thing I've ever seen like that was a rabbit with Pasteurella pneumonia--the lungs were similarly hemorrhagic; I suppose it's possible for a cat to get it too.

I'll let you know if the experts come up with anything!

Cheers,
Dr. Jean

 

[red_kittycat]

Thanks so much! Nothing worse than not knowing how someone (my cats are people, you know!) died.

My dad was murdered, but because they couldn't definitively say that head trauma was the cause of death, they didn't pursue the case. It was a grueling 3 years before the medical examiner told us her theory, but it still wasn't solid enough to go on his death certificate. But at least I had something to believe.

My point was, it's much easier to come to terms with things when you understand them and have some sort of closer.

 

[shlanon]

It's tough because you want to know WHY this happened and what it was.
I have a friend who found her brother dead in their bathroom when he was 14 and she was 13. They performed 3 autopsies and found no cause of death and no leads. Now she wants to be a pathologist or medical examiner.
I hope that you can get some more info about what might have happened to your cat.