How did my cat die?

Hello everyone, I'm here to share the story of my cat's death that I'm still unsure about to this day. For starters, my cat died 2 years ago when he was 13 years old. He was a male and also had diabetes but it was quite stable according to my vet. I'm not sure about his breed because he was a stray but he had short white and ginger hair (his body was white but his ears and tail were ginger). As for his weight, I believe it was 5 or 6kg. That's it for the description of my cat. Now I'm gonna tell you about what happened. 2 years ago I was seating on my recliner sofa and didn't notice that my cat was sleeping right under the leg part of the sofa (sorry I'm not sure how to call it) and so I began to close it and poor thing got trapped underneath and choked a little. I immediately got him out of there and after that he acted just like usual without showing any sign of pain or discomfort so I was relieved. Then, a couple weeks later (I don't quite recall how many exactly but I'd say 2 or 3 weeks) he started having difficulties breathing one night, out of nowhere. He was clearly in pain so I brought him to the vet clinic immediately and they made X-rays and everything. The vet explained that there was no hope because all his organs had moved to his chest and were packed there so he couldn't breathe correctly anymore and he was too weak to undergo a surgery. That day we put him to sleep forever. Now, my question is: did my cat die because of that incident with the sofa? How come he was fine for a couple weeks and suddenly he wasn't anymore? I can't make peace with myself as long as I don't know what happened. I would appreciate your help and opinion on this, please! Thank you to those who've read so far and to those who are willing to help! Take care everyone.

Hello - I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your cat, that the details still feel unresolved and that these thoughts are haunting you two years later.  This is not unusual after the death of a pet - but nor can it be it pleasant or comfortable (in fact I know it's not; I have been there), so well done for reaching out and trying to get your head around it.

Diaphragmatic hernia - where the gut contents slip through a hole in the diaphragm - is not uncommon.  It can be sudden, for example the result of blunt trauma, but usually this would take something extremely high-impact - usually a car accident.  Even then, the hernia might not be observed by the vet for days or weeks or even years and years afterwards.  I don't know enough about the sofa to know whether that might have been enough to do it; I hear that it correlates with being a short time before your cats' death, but the impact may not have been high enough and the diaphragm could also have been damaged years before.  Some cats have an undetected hernia from a very young age and for most of their lives, causing no obvious clinical problems with the intestines slipping in and out through the hole- or not - until 'something happens.'   This 'something' could be a tumour developing in the abdomen or chest, putting pressure on the guts.  Or disease resulting in abdominal or chest fluid, again putting physical pressure on the guts.  I do not understand enough about this case to know why manual displacement didn't work (likely your vet tried), or why surgical repair was not offered if it was not, or why your vet felt the patient wasn't strong enough.  But in general, surgery is uncommon unless the vet believes that the hernia was caused by recent trauma, because success rates are poor in cases where a cat has had a hernia for a long time, so perhaps this implies that the vet is not blaming the chair incident in this case.

There are few things that you may be able to do in order to help to bring yourself peace at this awful time.

1. The first is to ask your vet why they thing the hernia might have happened; whether trauma seemed likely, whether they felt the chair incident sounded enough, or whether it was more likely to be an old injury or defect, or influenced by e.g. other internal disease such as fluid as already mentioned.
2. The second is to seek grief counselling; the death of a loved one can make a very real impact on your well-being, and the deaths of loved pets are no exception to this.  Counselling cannot change what has happened, but it can certainly help people to live with it.

  I hope that something there is useful.