VODKA SAVES CAT’S LIFE

odkaVSAVES CAT’S LIFE 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. 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! 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 came out a funny lime/yellow colour! Immediately after she had taken the urine sample, Babi started to projectile vomit watery liquid. His urine tested very high for increased glucose levels. Initially they thought it might be diabetes, but Babi does not have a history of diabetes, and because he was acting and eating normally just the day before, that was quickly ruled out.

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? 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! Anti-freeze poisoning is treated with Disclaimer: intravenous ethanol, but, of course, that is not something that we have just lying The use of vodka around, so back to Google we went. What in this article was part of a specific could we use in its place? medical protocol which would be dangerous to attempt by anyone other than a professional. Alcohol 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 in all forms is toxic to dogs and turned out to be Romanoff vodka!. cats, and has no benefit as a home remedy if your pet is sick. Remember, it is never advised to give any form of medication to 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 your animal without first intravenously dosed Babi with vodka! consulting your vet.

Of course, even though it was diluted he still got drunk. We had to repeat the process every 6 hours for a day and a half, and then every 8 hours for another day. Basically, the ethylene glycol in anti-freeze causes crystals to form in the kidneys, which destroys the tubules in the kidneys, and the ethanol, or, in this case, the vodka dissolves the crystals and allows them to pass in the urine. By the 4th treatment Babi was almost back to normal. Eating and looking like a million bucks, very different from when he was first brought in. We kept him for a couple of days for observation and it was about a week before he could go home. To say that the family was thrilled to have him back would be an understatement, just check out the smiles on their faces! This case was fascinating, thinking on their feet and considering all angles, plus it was one that none of us (Dr K included) had ever seen or experienced before, but it is definitely a case that none of us will forget! After we first posted the story on Facebook (which went viral), a number of people wanted to know what we did with the rest of the vodka. We can’t tell a lie…we mixed the vodka with OJ to make screwdrivers, and celebrated that this is one story that had a very happy ending!