Lilly is our nearly 5 month old Bengal kitty whom my finance, and other year and a half old kitten (Blue) have come to love dearly. She is very active, constantly running around with Blue, constantly curious, and is very vocal being held almost as if she's losing out on time she could be exploring like a little kid would do haha.
Last night as we got home from work, we noticed Lilly wasn't running around like she normally would be. We finally found her in our walk in closest hiding above a box. We brought her out, and instantly she ran under our bed. We pulled her out and put her on the bed and noticed she was very hot (almost sweaty), was acting very lethargic, having trouble walking, tremors, and would hiss at her great friend Blue when he tried greeting her which was very out of character for her.
At first we had thought maybe her blood sugar is low (The symptoms seemed similar to hypoglycemia) and so we pricked her paw for blood, and to our concern didn't even flinch because normally she would never let us do something like that. Her blood sugar was 85 so not low enough to be of concern.
By this time it was 2 in the morning, but she seemed to be getting worse, so we finally caved and took her to the ER vet. The ER vet confirmed her temp to be 103.5, and said basically she had no idea what was going on, and would need to run some blood work which would cost 700$. We both agreed we would see how she would do over night and take her to get blood work with our vet in the morning. It still ended up costing 248$ which was infuriating because it was a very short examination, she gave her some subcutaneous fluid, and a small amount of medication called Cerenia (the vet claimed this would bring down her temperature).
Today we were able to get in to see our normal vet thankfully, and she showed much more concern and support for Lilly. She was also confused why the emergency vet gave Lilly cerenia because apparently it's an anti- nausea medication, and Lilly hadn't thrown up, nor was she having trouble eating. She said the emergency vet overcharged us and was confused what she was thinking giving the cerenia to her.
Our vet found that her temp was up to 104.3 and ran some blood work which was 3x less expensive than the ER vet. She tested for Felv/FIV which came back negative, she also did a CBC, Chem 17, and Lytees (SA) IH test and found that her white blood cell count was slightly elevated. she gave her a shot of meloxicam, and convenia along with metacam for us to give her over the next 3 days. She believed Lilly has an infection of some sort. We brought up FIP, but she didn't think that was the case. The cost of all this was the same price as the ER vet, 250$...
My questions are:
1. Why would the emergency room vet say she was going to give a medication to help with her fever, but actually gave her an anti nausea med instead.
2. We feel like going to the ER vet was a complete waste of money, time, and the fact that she didn't even have a clue as of what might be wrong. She didn't even fax over what she did for our cat, we had to show our vet with the receipt we received. Are we in the wrong for wanting to try fighting the fact they did absolutely nothing other than give our kitten medication that was completely unnecessary, and being told it was for the fever?
3. Do any of you with experience with FIP think she could possibly have it? After reading about it a bit, we're both terrified. She already is doing a bit better with what our vet has given her so praying that the medication will heal her.
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