Pyometra, an Alert to Cats or Dogs Owners!!

Note to readers: I am not a vet, and the below is a summary of my readings and a personal experience; be assured that I will make this as simple as possible, avoiding the medical terms and fancy explanations.

Pyometra is a deadly medical condition that could kill your female cat or dog by simply not spaying her or neglecting her heat cycles. Meaning, if your cat is horny and wants to mate, you HAVE to do one of following two things:

1. Have her mate, and you can do this by finding a friend who has a male cat, or take her to a vet for mating (not recommended) not only you will have to mate your cat every time she is in heat, making her pregnant, and bringing more offsprings to suffer or be kids' toys, you will also keep her life in danger for every time she doesn't mate by increasing her chances of getting Pyometra. On a human financial level, spaying will cost you half the price you would pay in a case of Pyometra, especially if it was an emergency.

1. Spay her (spaying: is surgically removing both ovaries and uterus aka the female reproductive system, making the female not capable of producing offsprings; highly recommended!) 

Inhumane? not really, I am personally offended by anyone who says that to me after what Brownie had gone into, I also advised my sister to spay her cat, and she did. Here is the rational why, the disease is hard to be discovered if you are not the type of person who pays hell of attention watching your cats every move. I personally thought that my cat had suddenly gained weight, before I realized she is acting in pain, and that there was a weird smelly not urine discharge on her legs and lower abdomen. My cat was really in pain on the day of the surgery, she wouldn't let me touch her stomach, and at the vet, she was scared, she wanted every chance possible to crawl on me, and she had tears in her eyes (yes, cats have tears as well as souls!).

Now here is what happens, when a cat is in heat, her body is ready to accept sperm from the male cat through mating, when it doesn't happen, the walls of her uterus start to thicken and make the perfect habitat for bacteria, which eventually gather through her slightly opened ready for mating cervix, and start an infection, making her uterus and ovaries swollen; imagine a balloon filled with liquid, thats exactly how it is. See below the pictures..

There are two types of this condition:

1. Open Pyometra, which means that the fluids are being discarded from her body, and the only symptom that differs this type from the second one, is the discharge that looks like urine but smells differently (be careful as cats tend to groom themselves, you may not see this either). This type can be treated with antibiotics with a very low chance for your cat to survive, and all the cases that I have read about over the internet, who have taken this decision, their cats/dogs didn't make it. On the other hand, you can take a better decision, and do the surgery.
2. Closed Pyometra, no discharges, and the only solution is surgery.

Pyometra is considered fatal because, the infected walls could burst, making the infection spread, causing her to die; so listen to me when I tell you to call your vet emergency line and not wait for one second if your cat showed any of the symptoms (cat acting like she is in heat, cant sit or move her lower body, abdomen looks bigger, lack of activities and playing, and/or a smelly discharge).

from my personal experience, I googled and read every page available until I got the closest to her condition that the vet actually thought I was a doctor! I took her for an emergency on a Friday, paid almost double the amount for a normal spay surgery (1300 SR). After the Surgery, I blacklisted a few people from my whole life for they were making fun of the matter; including what I now like to call former family members; my cat hated me after the surgery, she was admitted in the vet's clinics for a whole week, I was worried about her when she got home that i actually had to count the times she peed, and watched her pee! My baby is fine now Alhamdullah! I took a friend's advice to show her that I love her, even if by force, be there for her, and so I did!

Thats how this post ends, with a picture of Brownie when she was admitted..