Ordinarily I wouldn't ask any forum for help in diagnosis of a cat disease, but since the cat has already passed on... maybe you can help me shed some light on what happened to her. Even our vet was stumped and said that to get a true diagnosis they'd have to do a post-mortem, which we couldn't afford.

My cat, Mara, a gorgeous solid black kitty with a face that belonged on a calendar, managed to run outside one day, and it took about six hours to catch her and bring her back inside. When we brought her in, we noticed a small scratch, as though she had been in a fight. I was about six months behind on her vaccinations because I had been unemployed for a time (economy does suck...)

She was fine for three to four days, although now that I think about it she was kind of clingy to me. She's normally a very affectionate cat, so it didn't seem unusual. It was a Saturday night that she got sick. I had went over to a friend's house to watch movies. Since I lived at the time with my mother, she was home and heard Mara start letting out agonized cries, like she was in considerable pain. She called me, I came right over, and we rushed her to the vet.

The vet said her presentation was as if she'd been just run over by a car -- and when I told her she'd only been outside that once four days before, she realized that had to be ruled out, although they did do x-rays. The x-rays showed her small intestine was very full -- like fluid or gas, or some kind of intestinal blockage. Asked what kind of litter I used, I answered clumping, and that was what the vet was afraid of and wanted to do emergency surgery to remove any intestinal blockage. We knew it'd be expensive, but we agreed to the surgery because we wanted to do whatever we could to save her if it was something that could be repaired surgically.

They cut in, but when the vet got to the intestines, she saw that they were bleeding. She said that touching the intestinal tissue lightly was enough to make it bleed. She could not find evidence of a blockage, so sewed her back up and called me to tell me that it was something different than a blockage. The vet said that the only thing she'd seen that was similar was when a dog's intestinal tract is torn up by Parvo. They put her on fluid drips and did more bloodwork, and did end up giving her blood products somehow I believe. It was for naught -- she died 6 hours after she started crying out in pain. They did give her pain medicine so she was more comfortable near the end.

She wasn't running an extreme temperature, and the vet's first impression upon presentation was not of an infectious disease. I did not notice signifigant hunger or thirst, but she had ready access to a pet water fountain at all times so she could drink freely. However, with her vaccinations being out of date and her romp into the great outdoors, infectious disease seems to be the more likely possibility to me.

Is anyone aware of a cat who has presented like this, with a significant amount of pain and intestinal bleeding? Do you have any idea what could have been the cause of this? I've read the descriptions for FIP and FIE, and neither quite match up. Her bleeding was not from everywhere, it was that the intestines were bleeding into themselves -- not on the outside of them. No eye hemmorages, anything like that. And the severity of the disease and the pain manifestation seems too strong for it to be FIE.

Any suggestions would be helpful to ease my mind. I miss her terribly, and I feel very guilty that I let her sneak outside and didn't have her shots up to date. It'd give me some closure to know what I should have done, and what to do in the future if another cat of mine ever does have the same thing. After her death, I refused to have any cats in that home for a year, and took off my shoes before entering homes with other cats, just in case whatever she had might still be contagious (parvovirus can last a year?) No other cats I know have had this kind of disease hit so suddenly and so severely.

Thanks for your help.

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