Spice is very sick

This is a photo of her in her hospital cage earlier this afternoon, when I picked her up.

All along she had not been cleaning herself and was getting thinner. We thought it was because of stress from being relocated and getting accommodated to Moonshadow, her roommate. But then we went on a tiny vacation during Thanksgiving and left her some dry food and water; when we got back, she was much thinner. We fed her canned [soft] food only and she ate it voraciously. The next day I thought we should feed her paté, as we had been feeding her shredded food. She also ate that voraciously. The next morning, she would only lick the goop from the bottom of the paté can and not eat anything at all. That was last Saturday. I got a vet appointment and rushed her in.

The vet opened Spice’s mouth and she had advanced stomatitis and there was a pea-sized mass visible on the back of her throat on her right side [where a tonsil would be]. He asked us her FIV status and we didn’t know, so he planned to test her for that and feline leukemia [both were negative]. He planned hospitalization with support on antibiotics and pain medications over the weekend while he did a full blood work. Then on Monday, he planned to biopsy the mass for pathology to see if it was a malignancy.

She improved over the weekend, eating everything offered, but her globulins on her blood test were extraordinarily high, so the vet suspected irritable bowel syndrome [IBS], and switched her diet to venison. Plus, her stools were bloody, which could be the cancer or the IBS and her mouth was also bloody, again that could be the cancer or the IBS. Stomatitis can be seen with either cancer, IBS or with infections. So, that is where we were at discharge. We wait now for the biopsy results and buy venison for Spice to eat. The bill so far has edged over a thousand dollars.

Spice is home and resting. She was quite traumatized by events of the last few days. We have been given pain medications and antibiotics to administer to her while we wait for her results. She is a very sick kitty. We are hoping for the best.