Bolly is a 9 month old female speyed lilac Burmese kitten who came into Vetcare in May as the owner noticed she had been getting quieter over the last few weeks, she wasn’t playing as much and in the last few days her breathing seemed quite laboured. 

On examination we found that Bolly was quite dehydrated, her heart sounds were muffled and her breathing was about twice as fast as normal and her chest was really heaving. She also had a very high temperature – normally cats sit between 38 C and 39C but her temperature was 40.3C. 

Here is an xray of a normal cats chest, the white area in the centre is the heart and the lungs show up as dark areas as they are full of air.

She was admitted to the hospital for blood tests, chest x-rays and started on i/v fluids, antibiotics and pain relief. The blood tests showed all her organs were working normally but she had a very high white blood cell count which indicated infection or inflammation. 

The chest x-rays were very dramatic and showed that she had fluid in her pleural cavity. The pleural cavity is the gap between the chest wall and the lungs. In a normal cat this has a tiny amount of lubricating fluid in it and the chest is under a vacuum so it is easy for the lungs to expand when the cat breathes. If too much fluid (or air) is in the pleural cavity it stops the lungs expanding and eventually the cat will die from not being able to get enough oxygen. 

Here are Bolly's x-rays that show her chest is full of fluid and the lungs are compressed so hardly any dark areas are visible

A procedure called thoracaocentesis was performed where a small needle was placed between her ribs (after the skin had been surgically prepared) and the fluid was drawn off with a large syringe. We got about 75ml of cloudy smelly fluid from her chest which was pus. Now we could give the condition a name PYOTHORAX (Pyo means pus and thorax is another word for chest) Bolly felt a lot better with this removed but was not out of the woods yet. 

The fact she had such a high temperature and a high white blood cell count meant she probably had septicemia so she needed further supportive treatment over the next 3 days to help combat this. As there is no staff at Vetcare overnight Bolly went to the Animal Emergency Centre to be cared for. After she had stabilized they anaethetised her and placed a chest tube through her skin, between her ribs and then into the pleural cavity so that we could keep removing the pus. She was kept on antibiotics for 4 weeks to combat the infection and for the first 3 days was on very strong pain killers as it is a very painful condition. 

The next day she came back to Vetcare and we were able to flush her chest with warm saline to get more of the pus out and she started to eat a little. She was still very weak and miserable and so was monitored very closely. She lost around 10% of her body weight during this ordeal. 

After a weekend at the Animal Emergency Centre she was well enough to have her chest tube removed and was eating well and a lot happier. She has continued to improve and now is a happy healthy kitten that tears around her owners house. Usually cats that recover from this condition don’t get recurrence of the problem and go on to have a normal life expectancy. 

Bolly’s owner was very pleased that she had insured her as a young kitten with Pet-n-Sur. She ended up only having to pay 20% of the costs of her treatment which was a big help