Cat Living with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Roxanne Passed Away in 2025 From Multiple Health Issues Crashing Her Body

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Roxanne Passed Away in 2025 From Multiple Health Issues Crashing Her Body

We had a difficult year with Roxanne in 2025. She developed gastro issues in 2024 and was seen by an internist in October 2024 who put her on steroids suspecting that she had inflammation of her GI tract, possibly lymphoma, combined with CKD was causing inappetence and being run down and a whole set of symptoms that did not make sense.

She began eating a lot due to steroids and drinking a lot. Then she began to drink excessively into November and getting her chest wet (from putting herself into the water bowl) and began to seem tired and was not moving around the house as much as normal. Then she began to not eat as well as she had been and her weight began to slowly drop. There were many signs that she was not doing well. In early December I took her to the vet for blood work updates. Her formerly NORMAL blood work was sky high off the charts, showing CKD stage FOUR and diabetes, and internal damage. Her body could no longer handle the steroids and the steroids had damaged her kidneys.

Glucose: 403-September was 93, normal high is 175.

Creatinine: 1.9-normal is below 1.6.

BUN: 44-normal is below 35.

Her cholesterol and triglycerides were in the hundreds.

Urine had glucose and protein indicating that the kidneys could not filter properly and items were spilling into the bloodwork, and that her body had so much glucose that it was not being filtered by the kidneys but spilling over.

We quickly titrated the steroids down for the next two weeks. I increased her fiber source of psyllium and Forta Flora to help absorb the cholesterol and triglycerides (high cholesterol and triglycerides are due to kidney/liver/diabetes/steroids.) And I increased the fish oil which was also recommended to help.

We fed her Royal Canin Glycol Balance diabetic food as well as Hill's KD and other renal diets until February when her glucose levels appeared normal again.

We put her on vitamins, and hand fed her five times a day at 50ml per meal. Her weight kept falling. Cyproheptadine was not working for appetite stimulant, nor was Mirtazapine unless she felt better. The vet put her on fluids weekly, then twice weekly, then three times a week by spring. Fluids helped her feel better and to eat something on her own. She also periodically received B12 shots which provided a boost of energy for the body. She was also on a B complex vitamin but the shots provided a more accessible boost when injected into the blood stream.

She had vomiting and diarrhea. We gave her ½ tab cerenia a day which stopped the vomiting. Rice water and Forta Flora helped curb the diarrhea.

She was given Zenequin antibiotic to help with gastro inflammation. Eventually, that was dropped (she did not tolerate Baytril and neither did Elizabeth. It made them lethargic, uncomfortable, and did not increase eating) and in the spring she was given Veraflox.

She needed blood pressure medication as her blood pressure rose over 180 in February 2025. We put her on amlodipine, a half tab once a day and she did really well for a while. Then at the beginning of March 2025 she started to trend over 160 so we put her on one whole tab once a day. Eventually, her blood pressure came under control and would remain until September.

Eventually, by March, her CKD had improved to CKD 2 and the diabetes had cleared up likely due to improvement of CKD levels. By spring, she seemed to do better even though she was rarely eating on her own. But she did seem to move about the house more and was more alert and involved. When the weather was decent, she wanted out so I would put her in her tent.

Then by summer, she had weight loss despite hand feeding; she was drinking large amounts of water until she was soaking wet; and her red blood cell count began to fall. She had been receiving fluids twice a week, then by July three times a week.

Then suddenly September, she stopped eating on her own, began to sleep hiding underneath furniture, and appeared weak. Blood test results showed extremely low RBC-red blood cell count, hematocrit, and hemoglobin all extremely low-anemia; sodium extremely low, chloride low, bicarb high, etc. Her kidneys were likely failing. She developed sudden diabetes again per the blood test. She urinated lake size amounts of urine because the kidneys were not concentrating the urine. She was severely dehydrated but drank copious amounts of water to replace what the body was expelling. Her gastro ultrasound showed a mass on her liver which the vet suspected was cancer. She was referred to Jimmy’s oncologist (a week away). The next day, she could barely move and was suddenly wet on her chest and that was odd. Then later we saw her trying to drink from a bowl with her head on the rim of the bowl. (This is the body's way of trying to get more water when the kidneys stop functioning). So I called the vet and we took her for more fluids. Only the vet looked at her and was shocked by her appearance and told us to take her to the hospital as she believed she was suddenly crashing.

Unfortunately, Roxanne was crashing-her physical system was in severe decline. Everything seemed to implode. The emergency room doctor said her red blood cell count was almost nonexistent. Her kidneys were faltering, causing the diabetes. Her pancreas, liver, and GI tract were inflamed and failing. It was a biological chemical reaction that could not be stopped. Fluids were not stabilizing her. A blood transfusion would give her a few more days but they suspected she would be back again crashing and that she could not leave the hospital during that time. She was barely moving.

We chose to put her to rest that evening. We did not get a necropsy because we sort of knew what went wrong and since Katharine’s necropsy (she died February 2024) did not point to ONE reason for the cause of her sudden crash and death-it showed what we already knew to be possible culprits but did not explain how they came together to cause her death-I was afraid that the same would happen with Roxanne’s-that it would leave us with more questions and no answers. Of course, now, months later, I wish we did know more about what was going on.

What I wished I had known:

1) To increase her RBC would have possibly saved her life or saved it longer. Elizabeth’s red blood cell count fell badly enough fall of 2025 and a different vet put her on Varenzin-a red blood cell boosting medication. It greatly improved her RBD, hematocrit, and hemoglobin after being on it a month. We continue to monitor. Severe anemia crashes the body in various ways.

2) That steroids should not be given to cats with CKD, that they cause further kidney damage and can lead to diabetes which wrecks havoc on the kidneys and other systems. Which is why I refuse to give Elizabeth steroids for her gastro issues.

3) A week before when I noticed she was not doing well and she began hiding under furniture and not eating, I should have taken her then to the vet but her annual appointment was scheduled and I thought I could wait.

Roxanne came to us in the summer of 2016 as a neighborhood cat neglected by her owner. We eventually learned where Rox lived. She was out all day and night-and likely liked it-but began to hang out in our yard and on our deck and asked for food. She then began to come into the back room off the deck. By September, she was spending the night in the back room. When she seemed sick later in September, I messaged the owner about taking her to the vet, but the owner said that she had MOVED. And did not seem bothered that she moved without Roxanne. So, we moved Rox into our home. The following summer, I bought a huge pet tent so that she could be safely out and most of 2017-2024 she spent time outdoors in the tent, sharing space with one or two others (Katharine, Bette, Elizabeth, Baby) each time.

She loved sitting in windows and had her favorites to view the outside world. She could be found in various beds, cat beds, the cat trees but almost always under a blanket or behind our pillows. She loved to get on the counters, opening cupboards and hiding out, getting into opened closets and NOT letting us know for a couple of hours until we heard her crying or rattling the doors. She was always crying at the bathroom door to be let in. She loved to rattle our French doors in our dining/kitchen/living room to be let in a room, then cross over to rattle another door to be let out, only to circle back and rattle the door to be let back in. She chewed on everything. She chewed cloth wand toys, licked feather toys, chewed up cat toys, ate cords and charger cords. We had to encase so many electrical cords to lamps and electronics in plastic tubing or wraps that she could not bite through. She licked plastic sheeting/plastic wrap/plastic surfaces. She loved her outdoor tent but really wanted to be set free. She had the perpetual look of amazement and surprise and mischievousness in her eyes. She had a cute pink nose, and a classic black and white Tuxedo look. She was smaller than the others. She did not like being held or petted and tried to avoid touch. She did not cuddle up with us but would be in bed with us as long as we were not touching. She loved feather wand toys and catnip toys. She was the sweetest of sweet girls.