Diabetic Cat Has Mass or Blood Clot in Bladder

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djacks1128

djacks1128

Member Since 2010
Ashley was diagnosed in October 2010. She was on PZI between 3 & 4 units until last week and still unregulated. She had one UTI a year ago that was treated and went away. One week ago (Wednesday Jan 25) she showed signs of another UTI (bloody urine, straining, urinating around the house). I took her to a new vet and he prescribed Clavamox 2x a day and changed her insulin to 2 Units Lantus. We also changed food from Fancy Feast classics to Hills Science Diet M/D.
Woke up at 4:30am on Thursday and she was bleeding pretty heavily and had thrown up a little bit of blood. I rushed her to the emergency animal hospital and they did X-Rays and an Ultrasound. The X-Rays were clean, but the U/S showed a mass in her bladder. The prognosis was a cancerous tumor and suggested a $5,000 surgery to remove the mass and biopsy it. Ashley is 13 and not in good health so i decided not to go ahead with the surgery. They said that there is a small chance it could be a large blood clot caused by a UTI. I took her home and treated her for that by continuing with the Clavamox. She showed some signs of improvement. On Saturday morning, her BG was dramatically low (no reading or in the 20s on a Relion Confirm meter). We could not get it up all day and she was showing signs of hypo. We were pumping Karo syrup into her by syringe and nothing worked. I went and got her some high carb, Friskies w/Gravy and gave her sugar water and it finally went up, but WAY up and has stayed up ever since. On Sunday morning she seemed to be feeling much better and she hadn't had much bloody urine since probably Friday night. By noon on Sunday she was bleeding again and passed a small blood clot, so i brought her to my parent's vet. He told me that bladder tumors in cats are extremely rare and that blood clots are more common. I felt a weight lift off of me and was much more optimistic. He also told me to lower the Lantus dose to 1 unit. He did more bloodwork and gave her the Convenia antibiotic shot. She showed a nice improvement on Monday, however her BG is still way up (400s & 500s). Yesterday, again the bloody urine was still minimal. This morning I woke up to blood all over the house (this was the first night i left her out of the bathroom). Today her BG is: 7:30am 418, shot 1.5U, 11:20am 532, 2pm 548. She hasn't had bled anymore since this morning (or at least not since 7:30am). Her bloodwork came back today with significantly decreased Hematocrit (HCT), which went from 35 a week ago to 22 on Sunday, so now she's anemic. Vet told me that if she continues to loose blood she will die. We are still hoping that we are fighting a UTI and blood clot and that this will get better. This has been going on for a whole week now and there have been so many ups and downs. Ashley is a fighter, but i don't know what to do for her.
 
I am so sorry to hear this and what you two must be going through. Unfortunately neither do I have any experience with this, so that I can help.

All I can do is hope for the best and give warm hugs.
 
I'm so sorry to hear of Ashley's ill health. I don't have any experience with blood clots but I sure hope that you furbaby gets better soon. Jan
 
I just wrote a long painful message and lost it. I will try again. First let me say how very sorry I am that you and Ashley are going through this!

I just lost myy civvie, Calli, from a tumor in her bladder. She had symptoms of an infection, straining in the litter box and crying. The dr. found the huge mass with an ultrasound. She told me what she found and explained the options. It was not something she could live with. I asked her to see what it was for sure & if it was fixable. Calli's tumor burst & ruptured her bladder and she had to be put to sleep. The tumor was just too huge & had taken over her bladder until there was not enough left to fix. She was 16 1/2 and Racci's mom. It was a terrible shock to all of us. My only consolation is that Calli was asleep when it ruptured and through all this scary stuff since she was such a bad patient.

Calli was not bleeding. I don't know if that's a sign that Ashley has blood clots rather than a tumor or a sign that she is rupturing. She must be in pain though if she is straining and bleeding. I don't know what to tell you. If you're going to try to wait and see, I would make them give her something for pain and maybe a transfusion and liquid food IV for the anemia. I really feel bad for you.

Melanie & Racci
 
I have read so much on bladder tumors the last week.. Conor was dxed with one on thursday. Basically, a good radiologist can tell the difference between a mass and a blood clot. I dont think with a blood clot she should be bleeding so much. If the tumor has ruptured the bladder wall, she is likely in a lot of pain. If you can talk to the folks that did the ultrasound they can better advise you if a blood clot is even likely. The signs of a bladder tumor are just like a UTI like you described. The majority of bladder tumors in dogs start by the neck of the bladder and as they grow larger, can block the flow of urine. this can happen in cats too. You need to find out where the mass is in the bladder.
http://www.petplace.com/cats/urinary-bladder-cancer-in-cats/page1.aspx
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_transitional_cell_carcinoma.html
http://www.acvim.org/websites/acvim/index.php?p=205

Whenever they say something is "rare" in cats, my worry is that it isnt rare at all, just that many cats die before its diagnosed, as we have seen on this board with Acromegaly.
 
That's true Lisa. My vet said that cats are so brave. By the time we discover something is wrong it is usually too late to help them. She said that cats seem to have a fatalistic viewpoint and if something is wrong they tend to accept it as as it should be.

By the way, my vet did not charge me anything like that for the exploratory. My entire bill for Calli, which included special food and other things for Racci on it was only $600 and some odd dollars including sending for her ashes. She probably gave me a break but even so.......

I'm going to do the reading you sent links for. thanks. I'm terribly sorry to hear about Conor having this problem also. It's a terrible shock to hear this when all you expect is an infection. I hope his is not that bad.

Melanie
 
Hi djacks

I'm so sorry to hear this. With this kind of bleeding, I worry about it coming from the kidneys rather than the bladder. With her losing blood at this rate you must decide if you want to intervene (do surgery or consult an oncologist). Unfortunately I have to agree that it seems unlikely that this is due to a blood clot (what would be the proposed cause of the blood clot anyway?). Blood clots can happen with trauma, but shouldn't happen spontaneously.

I would at least consult an oncologist if I were you. Get some info, see if there are any other options, and make a plan, even if that plan is just for palliative care.

Please be very careful with her insulin. Animals with serious disease can have very wonky insulin requirements, so test often. In the future, if she's too low to read on the meter, she needs to go to the ER for IV therapy. Seizures, brain damage, hypothermia, etc. are all bad consequences of hypo.

Again, I'm very sorry.
 
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