Toxic flowers

Well, actually, it's not such a good morning to be honest. Last night we had to put our 10 month old kitten, Jack, to sleep. I know this is not anything new to anyone who has ever owned a pet and had to make the decision to put their pet down, but the story of our kitten is somewhat tragic because her death could have been prevented. 

I wanted to make it more well known that bulb flowers are very toxic for cats. If any part of the flower is ingested (bulb, leaves, flower or stem) it will cause renal failure unless it is pumped from the cats' system immediately. If we had known this 4 days ago, we would have been able to save our little kitty. 

On Mother's Day, Jack ate the leaves of a lily plant that my sister had gotten my mom. We didn't think anything of it because earlier that same day Jack had fallen off the roof of the house because she wasn't the most coordinated cat, to say the least. After both the fall and eating the plant, Jack was just as playful and hungry as she always was. The next evening was when we started to notice a change in Jack. She didn't eat much of her dinner, which was extremely odd for her, because on any given day she would have inhaled her food. The next day she didn't eat at all. She was lethargic, sitting in a curled up position, and would gag at the smell of food in front of her face. We thought this was odd but thought it could be due to the trauma of falling off the roof and the side effects of the fall were causing her not to eat, possibly because of internal damage. We gave it one more day to see if there was any improvements in Jack's condition before taking her to see the vet.

Jack is my sister's pet, her fur baby. My sister had told the vet at Pawsitive Pet about Jack eating anything and everything in site and asked if there was anything Jack could have eaten that would cause her to not want to eat, but the vet told my sister that Jack's behaviour was due to the trauma of the fall and gave my sister pain killers and a can of wet food to try to entice Jack to eat. Jack didn't eat the food the vet gave her, which concerned us even more. The day after the vet visit I called Fairfield Veterinary clinic, which wasn't Jack's vet, to schedule an emergency check up once my sister got home. I had also called my veterinary assistant friend, who works at Fairfield but wasn't working at the time of my call, to ask her opinion on why Jack wouldn't be eating. The first question she asked me was if Jack had eaten a lily. My heart dropped at this remark. At this point it was 4 days after she had eaten the lily plant and by then it was too late. Her kidneys were past the point of saving, and it would have been an $800 vet bill to put Jack through the hospitalization treatment, and the chances of her surviving were slim to none. My sister had to make the unfortunate decision to put our beloved baby Jack to sleep. The goodbyes were emotional.

What I am trying to do by telling you our story is to make people aware of the fact that bulb flowers are toxic for cats. Had we known this, in all the research we had done on what to avoid feeding our cats, in the lists and lists of foods that were bad for cats, bulb flowers were not on any of those lists. Our vet hadn't asked my sister if Jack might have eaten one, even though all of Jack's signs and symptoms pointed at renal failure. 

Sincerely,
Renee Savaia