hi everyone - looking for any and all advice and thoughts on our current situation.
myself and my partner adopted our first cat in October 2025. she is a super shy timid girl but you can tell she has a heart of gold. she’s made a lot of great progress but we felt she needed another push to come out of her shell. she did great with other cats in the shelter so we decided to adopt another!
our new cat is very outgoing and sweet - begging for pets all the time and very affectionate. She’s estimated to be about 2 years old and has been spayed and FIV/FeLV negative. we did the meet and greet, everything seemed great, we asked the shelter if she had any health issues and they said none! and we took her home.
the first red flag was once we got home and did a once over of the vet records, we learned she had been pregnant and had a litter shortly before she was spayed. we didn’t notice in the shelter but her belly is super exposed like she was preparing to or already nursing. the shelter didn’t mention this at all which i thought was kind of weird since a pregnancy can cause health issues or things to look out for later in life, that they didn’t mention this at all.
she also came home with us with an upper respiratory infection. the shelter did mention this at many points through the process, saying it was a possibility and that stressed cats can develop this. wondering if anyone can also attest to this experience.
she’s now over the respiratory infection and we had her first real vet visit a week or so ago. the doctor noticed she has some pretty concerning plaque buildup on her back teeth and that she’ll need a dental. otherwise they said she was perfectly healthy.
we went back to the vet yesterday for a second dose of the FVRCP vaccine she was due for, and so she could get bloodwork done ahead of the dental (to clear her for anesthesia). well, the vet also found two lumps in her mammary area, so we had to do an FNA and send for cytology on each of them. we’re obviously hoping this is mammary hyperplasia and not tumors, but we won’t know for about a week. can tumors even grow this quickly? is it possible she could also be producing milk still even though she’s been spayed?
then they called today, and let us know her bloodwork came back with high globulins. they had us add on a heartworm and FIV/FeLV test to rule those out as well, even though she previously tested negative for FIV/FeLV on her shelter paperwork.
we adopted her on April 18th and it’s now May 7th, it hasn’t even been 3 full weeks and we’ve spent 2,000+ on vet bills with plenty more to come it seems. i’m wondering if this seems like just a terrible coincidence, or if the shelter may have been withholding information from us. I just can’t imagine a healthy cat suddenly developing this many health issues after being removed from the stress of the shelter. we also haven’t introduced her to our resident cat due to all the health issues - are we being to precautious or is there actually cause for concern here for the health of our resident cat?
we’re happy to care for our girl in any way possible and want to give her an amazing and healthy life. she is full of energy and life and doesn’t act like a “sick” cat. does anyone have similar experiences and it ended up not being a severe illness? is our vet doing everything they should in this situation or are they doing too much? is the shelter sus here at all? i want to understand from a neutral perspective since our experience was so different adopting our first cat.