*EVEN IF YOU DO NOT PLAN ON DONATING, PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU ARE A CAT OWNER. IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON VETERINARY NEGLIGENCE AND OUR EXPERIENCE WITH RAT POISON, HEARTWORMS, AND IBD/GI CANCER IN CATS*

Hey Everyone,

This is my cat, Brandon. She is very sick and needs help.

We have faced a lot of complications getting her proper care, which has caused us to incur avoidable medical costs and potentially further damage to her condition.

It all started last Tuesday when she suddenly started to have a vomiting episode with high respirations, bloody diarrhea, and intense pain. I brought her to Steel City Emergency vet clinic immediately to get her treated. Upon arrival, the vet informed me she probably had a syncopal episode and maybe a heart attack. Her heart rate was elevated as well as her respirations and she was requiring oxygen support. They asked us if we had any idea what could have happened.

I had no idea, but I did remember we had poison mouse traps in the house (the Tomcat ones that are labeled as "child and pet safe" because they are self-contained), and I sent them a picture. They then ran a bunch of lab tests and did imaging.

Ultimately, they decided to treat her for a rat poison with a warfarin toxic effect that causes bleeding because her labs indicated an elevated clotting time. They did this without considering the picture of the poison we just sent them (the poison was an entirely different poison, which I will explain further in the story) or the insanely abnormal nature of all of her other labs indicating polycythemia, neutropenia, and kidney and liver damage.

They started her on a vitamin K regimen (the antidote to warfarin poisoning) and continuous fluids. In the morning, we had to pick her up because they were closing. They insisted she would have a full recovery with home administration of oral vitamin K for a few weeks to several months. They told us that her clotting time was normalizing and that we did not have to take her to another vet if we didn't want to. This visit cost us approximately $1,500. This is her when she got out :(

We wanted to ere on the side of caution, so we took her to our regular vet, Red Mountain Animal Clinic, who decided to continue the treatment plan of vitamin K and fluids. Upon her arrival to them, she was still vomiting, not eating, and having bloody stools. Her clotting time began to increase again, as well, despite the vitamin K. They told me when she arrived, it was 8 seconds, and only 24 hours later, it was 13 minutes (unfortunately, I have no copies of her labs from this clinic because they did not send them to me after repeated requests).

The staff there couldn't figure out what was going on, so they finally decided to call poison control (mind you, this is the first time either vet had reached out to them and this was 3 days after her symptoms began). Poison control told them that Brandon was actually poisoned with Bromethalin which is a neurotoxin that is present in ALL Tomcat products and HAS NO CURE. The only true form of treatment is for the animal to receive activated charcoal to limit the absorption of the poison as much as possible.

Basically, bromethalin toxicity presents with neurological signs in such as seizures, tremors, and hind leg weakness in cats. Once these symptoms begin, irreversible brain damage has occurred and the animal would need to be euthanized. We were heartbroken and angry. Why hadn't either of these vets paid attention to the information we provided them in the beginning?

The vet assured us she would be okay because she was not experiencing any of these signs, although she was still within the window for them to occur.

But this begs the question, why was she bleeding?

She was having no neurological symptoms but was still having elevated clotting times (in the minutes range), continuous bloody stools, and not eating. This concerned me greatly. Eventually, the vet revealed that her increasing clotting times may have been being caused by them treating her incorrectly for the warfarin rat poison with the vitamin K therapy. Vitamin K overdosing can cause bleeding and increased clotting times if it is used incorrectly.

I really couldn't believe that this was happening, but he vet continued to reassurance us, telling us each day that she should be able to return home then changing their mind. This lasted from Wednesday to Monday.

Finally, I was done waiting on them to help her and asked them for the poison control case number to contact them myself. I explained everything to them, and they put me in touch with a toxicologist that said there was no way that she could have been poisoned by either one of the poisons because if a mouse had eaten it, regardless of what poison it could have been, there would not have been enough bioavailability for her to be as sick as she was. We paid $850 for all of that mistreatment and time wasted.

So, we picked her up and took her to Auburn animal emergency clinic later that day. By this time, she hadn't eaten in a week and had lost at least 2 pounds (she was around 13, to begin with). Yesterday, they called and said she has heartworms AND either GI cancer or irritable bowel disease (IBD). They also said she suffered a pulmonary embolism that caused the respiratory distress last Tuesday. It was crazy that in less than 24 hours they were able to tell us exactly what was going on.

We just picked her up today because they were able to improve her condition. We are going to keep her on a GI-safe diet and continue to monitor her for any other symptoms of respiratory distress. This is because there is still a possibility there are more heartworms present that could cause another pulmonary embolism. This visit has cost us another $1,500, with more on the way up to $3,000.

In about 2 weeks, after her body has time to deal with all the inflammation, they would like to do an Echo of her heart so that they can check its strength to see if she could go under general anesthesia for a biopsy of her bowels to discern between cancer and IBD. They will also need to run labs to check the status of her heartworms. They estimated that this visit will cost another $700-$900. If all goes well, they would want to proceed with the biopsy which would be another $2,500.

One of the worst parts of this is that about 1-2 years ago our dog had heartworms, and I was concerned for Brandon. Red Mountain said that cats rarely get heartworms, if ever. I got her tested anyways, and she was negative at the time. I asked if I should put her on heartworm prevention, and they said they would not recommend it. On another visit, I told them I was concerned that her stomach seemed firm and distended. They said it was just gas and not to worry about it.

Both of these issues could have been avoided if our vet had taken our concerns seriously. This is a cautionary tale of veterinary negligence, and I want everyone to know that it is okay to advocate for your pet.

I know this is a lot over a cat, but the vet at Auburn said that she has a good prognosis if we can keep with the treatment plan. She was very awake and playful today, just like her old self. I love her a lot, and I know some of you have met her too and know that she is a very special cat. I don't expect to cover the whole cost of this with this gofundme, but I am trying my best to stay afloat amid all of these extremely costly treatments. In total, we have paid $3,800 (with more on the way). $2,300 which was wasted on poor treatment. And, we are looking at a projected future cost of $3,400+

If you would be kind enough to donate, we would be immensely grateful. If not, we understand. Money is tight, especially with the economy the way it is right now, but we really thank you for reading this and sharing our struggle. <3

Please share this so that others are informed of the potential dangers of rat poisoning, veterinary negligence, GI cancer/IBD, and heartworms. Thanks again!