V
odka
S AV E S C AT ’ S L I F E
A VERY STRANGE CASE THAT OUR VETERINARY TEAM FIGURED OUT IN RECORD TIME
It is stories like these that just show how at even a small animal clinic in the middle of the Free State, South Africa, you can have great minds working quickly to figure out a problem and save an animal’s life.
The team went back to the drawing board and started again, this time they decided it had to be kidney failure and with such a sudden onset and rapid decline, that it had to be linked to poison, but what poison?
It all started when Babi was rushed to us by Jabu and Reitumetsie (who absolutely love their cat). Babi is known to be a fussy cat, but they became very concerned when he wasn’t eating and, in addition to that, he seemed very weak and feeble, barely able to stand. They scooped him up and carried him in their arms, almost 2kms through the valley, to get to us. Thankfully, Babi had been sterilised and vaccinated previously, so they knew exactly where we were!
That was when they started thinking about the time of the year. It is very cold here in the Free State in winter with temps reaching -5 most mornings. They came up with potential anti-freeze poisoning and quickly checked Google for more information. Sadly, the prognosis for antifreeze poisoning is very poor if not caught early, and we initially feared the worst. But, because Babi had vomited, the team was convinced that we had caught it early enough, and that we had to try everything we could to save him. The Internet said that the urine would be fluorescent, so Dr K rushed back to her private practice, which thankfully wasn’t too far away, to get her fluorescent lamp and the urine was a bright neon colour. That confirmed our diagnosis. Now for the treatment, and this is where the story gets very interesting!
Thankfully, Dr Katherine was at the Cluny clinic in Fouriesburg with Dr Eunice Olevano (our CCS vet) and Dr Mariska Malan (CCS vet from Ladybrand), who had brought a dog for us to x-ray. The veterinary team immediately suspected poisoning, so Dr K did a cystocentesis (which involves the insertion of a needle through the abdominal and bladder walls to get a urine sample). The urine Disclaimer: came out a funny lime/yellow colour! The use of vodka Immediately after she had taken the urine sample, Babi started to in this article was part of a specific projectile vomit watery liquid. medical protocol which would be dangerous to attempt by anyone His urine tested very high for other than a professional. Alcohol increased glucose levels. Initially in all forms is toxic to dogs and they thought it might be diabetes, but Babi does not have a history cats, and has no benefit as a home of diabetes, and because he was remedy if your pet is sick. acting and eating normally just the Remember, it is never advised to give day before, that was quickly ruled any form of medication to out. your animal without first consulting your vet.
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Anti-freeze poisoning is treated with intravenous ethanol, but, of course, that is not something that we have just lying around, so back to Google we went. What could we use in its place? Dr K rushed off to Sakkie at the local bottle store in Fouriesburg and got hold of the purest bottle of vodka she could get (which turned out to be Romanoff vodka!. Thankfully, the team had Babi hooked up to a drip, so it took them a couple of minutes to work out the dosage which they had to dilute…yes you are reading this right, we intravenously dosed Babi with vodka! NOVEMBER 2021 | PETPRINTS
