Toby isn't Going to Make It

He is experiencing multiple organ failure. The vet believes he was born with many defects and problems, including a liver that does not process food well enough to give enough nutrition to grow normally, hence his diminutive size for his age. He does not have Felk or FIV, but she said it could be a display of non effusive FIP although it would be hard to tell until a necropsy. But, she does believe he was born with these problems, that have compounded, as his body tries to grow, and that they are many and that he really never had a chance.

Toby isn't coming home today. He has died.

It is very very sad. When he came back after being adopted with his mom, he was not active and he had the tail twitching thing going. I thought maybe he was just stressed out and getting used to things here, and needed some time to adjust. There is nothing that could have been done for him then either, however. It's one of those things.

When he first came back, he would lick a cinder block I use to hold up something. I could not keep him from licking it. None of the other cats showed any interest in it. I thought then he must have some deficiency and finally had to remove the cinder block from the house. I looked up that behavior today and found this:


The excessive licking of metal, walls and other
> objects has been associated with a
> number of conditions, including diabetes mellitus,
> hyperadrenocorticism, liver disorders,
> hyperthyroidism (cats), hypothyroidism (dogs),
> kidney failure, seizure activity and
> gastrointestinal
> disorders. Given the number of conditions that
> this behavior can occur in conjunction with, it
> may be
> just an unusual habit or it may be that it is a
> non-specific response to a variety of illnesses.
> To the
> best of my ability to research this, there is no
> vitamin or mineral deficiency that consistently
> produces
> this clinical sign

Actually, upon necropsy, it was determined Toby's pancreas was tiny and withered, as if it had been consumed. I asked the vet what would cause this and she thought maybe an autoimmune disease, like Lupus. But I looked it up, and this is usually caused by chronic pancreatitis, which is terribly painful. The scarring and inflammation prevents the digestive enzymes from entering the small intestine so instead, they digest the pancreas itself and spill into the abdominal cavity. It is a horrible horrible disease, of unknown origin in cats, and may be caused by an autoimmune ailment like Lupus.

In dogs, it is usually caused by over eating of fatty foods and age. If I had known his body had disgested his pancreas, I would have put him out of his misery instantly. My only solace is that his blood sugar and electrolites were so out of whack that he probably had no idea what was going on at all.

The only cats I've ever known to get this have had cancer or FIV. Hopi had this in the end. She died of Lymphoma that affected her liver, stomach, pancreas and small intestine. They could not even detect at the very end by X-ray or bloodwork, only with an exploratory surgery. They did not do an extended necropsy to see if Toby had cancer.