10/16/2025
Sorry this is so long but please help me.
I have lost pets before in the past, one being 18 years old. They were painful and I was sad but never this devestated and severely depressed. My dear cat was not a pet she was my daughter, my best freind, my mother… a lot of things for me. I always told myself that I love her too much and its not normal. She died tragicly and suddenly 47 days ago at the age of 11 and ım just feeling worse everyday. İm at the point that I cannot function in my daily life anymore.
An issue I especially cant resolve is that I feel guilty for causing or contributing to her death. My vet believes (and so do I) that she possibly had a undiagnosed heart condition. Her symtoms started 7 months prior her death. She would occasionally get disabling pain in her hind legs especially the right leg. It would last 4-6 hours despite pain meds and then miraculousely dissapear as if it never happened. My vet briefly mentioned a possible clot blocking her artery then dislodging itself (saddle tromboses) which is Im told to believe difficult to diagnose as she would have needed to be transported to a far away clinic and need anesthesia which would be life threatening for her at her age and physical condition (she previousely had pancrease and liver problems). However her x-rays confirmed a degenerative hip joint problem and hernia which was taken to be the cause of this occasional pain occuring especially when she jumped up and about too much when playing with our other 1 year old cat.
I was given a pain med to give her when this happened since it often occured at inapropirate times of the night. İt averagely occured once a month. As she hates taking meds ı would mix it into a small amount of her favourite wet food.
The night she died she seemed a bit uncomfortable then the pain started agian. The same as before but this time she was panting while breathing rapidly and trying to hide. This wouldnt happen before but I didnt think and ı gave her the med mixed into her food. I put it in front of her and she devoured it. Which made me happy because she would sometimes refuse to eat it as she probably smelt the med.
However I was concerned about her breathing so I called the vet on night shift and he came to open the clinic and I took her there. The vet administed duiretic and pain killer injections and gave her something for her stomach orally. He then asked me if she had eaten while breathing like that and she might have inhaled some food into her airway as he could hear some wheezing. I cant remember if the wheezing was present before or after I gave her the food. He told me to bring her back the next day so he could check on it.
However as soon as we got home her condition worsened terribly. She couldnt hold her head up, was pressing her chest into the sofa and biting the blanket underneath her. Some watery pink coloured mucus came from her mouth. I knew something was going wrong. I called the vet who told me to bring her back the next day and the pink colour was not blood but the medication he gave her which was pink. Then I saw her paws getting blue. I told my husband she was having a heart attack, to which my husband replied dont be silly. He called the vet to reasure me she wasnt having a heart attack and ı was being overly anxious. The vet said her paws were blue because she was not breathing properly and to bring her back the next day. I said no Im bringing her in now. On the way to the vet she passed out not breathing ı patted her so she started breathing again. The vet immediately gave her oxygen and administed an anticaugulant through her vein. She was breathing again but still rapidly. He put her into the oxygen chamber pumped in some inhalents to open her airways. There as we waited she vomited which the vet said was a good thing as it would relieve the internal pressure on her lungs. He said she should do better in the morning if not he might refer her for aspiration as a last resort to extract the food that got in her airway. She lasted another 2 hours, I carefully observed her breathing which got better for a few minutes and then she contracted her front paws then stopped breathing altogether. I notified the vet who administed heart massage but couldnt bring her back.
I asked if it was the food getting in her airway that caused all this. He told me not to blame myself. But said nothing else. I went back a number of times to ask my vet what actually happened, I also consulted other vets, chat gpt, any souce I could find, which all confirm the diagnoses of blood clot leading to a heart attack. As for the food I learnt that when food enters the airways it can cause sudden death within minutes ıf there is a full blockage, if not it may lead to infection and aspiration pnumonia which can be fatal within a few weeks if not treated. My cat died in 6 hours. However I cant stop thinking that the food I gave her getting into her airway is what caused the heart attack or possibly lead to her death if she was innitially having a heart attack in the first place, that she might have survived had the food not got in.
Anything that anybody says seems like they are consoling me. I need the truth. I can deal with it im in therapy anyway.
