I have not seen any of our animals do something exactly like that -- but
they have had a few throat problems.

One rabbit once put his neck out oddly and drooled after eating, and ran
from us. He was actually had food stuck in his throat and was choking or
gagging. In the chase to catch him the food made it's way down, but
after a trip to the vet we found he had very swollen lymph nodes in the
throat, and that's why it stuck. (His lymph nodes were swollen because
of another, on-going problem.)

We also had a cat with dental problems that the vet could not diagnose
for awhile. He had a big infection, which caused scar tissue in the
nasal passages and top of the throat. He would make like snorty-cough
noises. It wasn't really a cough or sneeze, just a strange push-out of
air. The vet thought he had grass caught up his nasal passages. She put
the tube down the passages and could not see it, but saw all the scar
tissue. He went back to feeling good after he finally had dental surgery.

Lastly, we had a kitten with an upper respiratory infection. She
developed sores down her throat, which I guess is common in URI's. She
was in such pain, drooling, gagging, not eating at all. We had to wait
that one out since it is a virus (she was on antibiotics so there were
no secondary infections.) What ended up helping her was pain medication.
We finally got that after days of her not eating, and she was on cloud
9. She ate, she drank, she played. It was such a relief for her.

Hope any of these 3 helped, or at least gave you things to talk about
with your vet. I'm wondering if pain meds for your cat would help her to
eat until you can get the problem fixed. You might want to discuss that
with your vet.

Good luck with the birthday girl.

Rhonda

Is it anything like the video shown here?

http://www.fritzthebrave.com/asthma/symptoms.html