Ok, very bad daddycat here. 
This afternoon, I came home, and noticed Teego had a very funny yellow mouth, as if he’d been eating something he shouldn’t have.
To my horror I realised! He must have eaten a lilly (oleander) that I’d been given a few days earlier, but it was only a bud, and it must have opened up in the morning!
I called the Vets and they said I ought to bring him in for a check over. He seemed fine, and unbothered, but he had vomited 3 times so I was hopeful that he’d got rid of anything in his stomach. I looked at the lilly, and saw that only two of the pollen covered stamens were missing, and I’d found a chewed one on the floor that I’m guessing he’d spat out. I cut off the remaining flower and put it in a container to take with us to the vets.
After arriving at the Vets, we saw Jesse Davicioni, a nice vet we’ve seen before, and he knows Freya and Teego… He was very calming to a panicky Daddycat, and explained what we would have to do. Lillys are very poisonous to cats, but the symptoms can take a day or so to manifest, so his advice was to take Teego to the Animal hospital about 30 minutes drive away.
Teego feeling sorry for himself after vomiting.
Also, Jesse the nice Vet put a catheter in Teegos arm, and gave me a package of saline drip and some more activated charcoal to give to the Animal Hospital so that everything was all ready when he got there.
Mommacat then joined us to take Teego to the hospital. When we arrived, there was a lovely Nurse there that was really concerned for Teego’s welfare, and that put our minds at rest too.
Daddycat held Teego so that she could get the drip in, and Teego was a very good and brave boy. All the time since arriving the Vets, he didn’t cry out or struggle once! But I think the tape on his furs bothered him, and he struggled a bit when the catheter was being connected, which resulted in a bit of Teego blood being spilt.
It was pretty tough watching my baby kitten bleed, but I was happy he was in good hands, so I didn’t freak out or anything, and besides – I didn’t have time to freak out – I was too busy holding Teego’s arm still!
Eventually, The drip was all in place, and Teego was sporting a rather fetching purple bandage!
Finally, Teego went to his hotel room for the night, with his drip in place settled down, and as we were finally leaving, his eyes were starting to droop.
So to summarise, for the details:
- Oriental Lillies or Oleanders are DEADLY poisonous to cats. They are beautiful to look at, but just not worth the risk. We’ve had them before, and neither cat has shown any interest, but it just needs one munch for a whole lot of heartache and expense.
- As soon as Teego got to the Vet, he induced vomiting, and gave activated charcoal liquid to absorb the toxins.
- Then Teego went to the hospital, and was put on a saline drip to flush out any remaining toxins.
- He’ll be monitored regularly and if anything happens, the emergency on-call vet will be called.
- He’ll get some more activated charcoal in the night to absorb anything else that it can.
- In the morning, he’ll go back to Jessie our vet, and spend another 24 hours in their care, with less monitoring, but a blood test later to look for any liver or kidney problems.
- Fortunately Teego has RSPCA Gold Insurance so all costs should be covered. That’s a big weight off our minds at such a difficult time.
Next thing is I call the hospital at 08:30AM to check everything is OK. Of course if anything happens, they’ll call me straight away, but we have tremendous faith that this will all be a big waste of time and money. He’s young, strong, and showing no signs of poisoning so far.
I’ll let you know in the morning how he goes.
Paws crossed for the little chap.
Thanks very much to Jesse Davicioni from Andersons Vets in Orpington and the nice lady at Foxgrove Animal Hospital in Beckenham too! I’m afraid I didn’t get her name
