Those who fall through the cracks

While we are doing our best to get as many street animals neutered with the best of our intentions, let us not forget that the neutering procedure does carry some risks, as do all surgeries. In order to minimise the risks, it is advisable to ensure, as far as we can, that the animal is in relatively good health, has been eating well and is of appropriate weight, size and age to go through the procedure. The vet will do a physical examination and it is our responsibility to inform the vet about the background and history of the animal, as far and as much as we know.

Still, despite all our best efforts, some animals still fall through the cracks. Sometimes there are underlying health problems which cannot be detected or sometimes it could even be due to an allergy to the medicines used in the surgery.

Here’s where we have to take comfort in knowing that we have done our very best with good intentions and efforts. Some things are simply beyond our control.

This is one such case, shared by Alex.

May Sam be in a good place now.

From: Alex Kam 
Date: Sat, Oct 11, 2014 at 11:39 AM
Subject: Sam the Cat
To: Chan Kah Yein <chankahyein@gmail.com>

Hello Dr Chan,

It’s been a while! I was going to write you earlier to apply for subsidy of neutering of a stray animal. However, Sam, the stray cat that got neutered on Wednesday that I was going to apply for, passed away yesterday night.

First let me tell you about Sam’s story. Late last weekend, Patches, my paralyzed cat, (a story for another time perhaps) was making war cries in the porch. It was so loud and so scary, I went to check out what’s up. Turned out she had managed to corner a stray cat (Sam) in our porch! He was a timid, thin tabby. I rescued him from the angry clutches of Patches, and he stuck around till morning outside the house to greet me in the morning. How sweet! My street is filled with female cats, he’s one of the few males around, so I figured neutering him would be good to control the kitty population on the street. I managed to catch him on Tuesday morning, it was an easy task since Sam is so gentle and manja. Then I scheduled a neutering appointment for Wednesday.

Why he died is still a mystery, might remain so since we already buried his body. But I have a suspicion that Sam had an underlying medical condition that wasn’t obvious, and the surgery triggered something. He seemed like a healthy cat when I brought him to the vet, just a tad on the skinny side. How many stray cats aren’t? But since Sam seemed healthy enough, I decided to go ahead with the surgery. I believe that most rescuers would too.

When Sam was brought back home however, he had been lethargic and refusing to eat. He only had a few kibbles later in the night, that was his last meal until his death. Since then he had diarrhea, vomiting bile, and general tiredness. At first I thought it was just a side effect of the surgery, since different cats react differently to the anaesthesia. Patches bounced back pretty quickly after her pyometra surgery, started eating on the 2nd day. Silver took longer for her spaying surgery. I tried lots of kinds of food! Kibbles, tuna canned cat food, steamed chicken, even AD Hills! (the latter 2 went to neighbor’s dogs since none of the cats wanted it)

Then yesterday night Sam suddenly took a turn for the worst. I tried forcefeeding him but he’s not even swallowing! He was just laying there, seemingly depressed, lethargic, and showing signs of giving up. I tried injecting water into his mouth but he just expelled them. Then when I was heating up the heating pad to keep him warm, he passed away.

There are a lot of success stories of animal rescues and CNRM everywhere. However, we constantly forgot that there are the few and far in between rare cases that the animals die from the spaying/neutering process. It is a surgery after all, and even if the risk is very low, it is still a risk, your animal might just be the one that falls into that 5%. So this is a gentle reminder of that. Sam is a minority, even if he had passed on, I feel like I should tell his story to let people know… that not all CNRM cases pan out, there are some that fell through the cracks.

Best wishes,

Alex Kam