We took Zoe to the vet yesterday, because she looked really bad. She had lost a lot of weight, was very lethargic, had almost no color in her gums, and was just generally disheveled. They did blood work and x-rays, which were inconclusive. All of her organ functions were OK, and the only thing “wrong” was a low hematocrit. (The hematocrit is the percent of whole blood that is composed of red blood cells. The hematocrit is a measure of both the number of red blood cells and the size of red blood cells.) The x-rays showed two bad things - a shadowy mass in her abdomen that was about the size of a golf ball and fluid in her chest cavity. Dr. H couldn’t get a clear look at her heart and lungs because of the amount of haziness on the x-ray. Her breathing was labored, and he was afraid that any stress could have sent her into respiratory or cardiac distress/arrest. He recommended that we take her to IVS for a chest tap and overnight monitoring. So I did.
When I got there, they did an initial exam and came back with an estimate of $800 - $1200 for everything they wanted to do. OUCH! At the bare minimum, the overnight monitoring, chest tap, cytology, and culturing would have been ~$400. THEN, we would have been looking at one of four things:
A raging infection (which wasn’t very likely since she had a normal temperature and no elevated white blood cell count), which would have required hospitalization, IV fluids/drugs, etc.;
Cancer, which would have made this one easy;
A heart problem, which would have required more care than the infection scenario (including further diagnostics to pinpoint the problem to ensure that the correct medication was given); or
Feline Infectious Peritonitis, which is always fatal.
So, after a long (and emotional) call to hubby, he came and joined me at the clinic, and we made the very difficult decision to have her euthanized. We thought about bringing her home for a few days, but realized she wasn’t going to just get better without some sort of medical care. And we didn’t want her to suffer any more. She had been going downhill for about three weeks, but we honestly didn’t notice until this week. She was really having a hard time breathing, and we didn’t want to wait until her condition was desperate and try to rush to the local emergency clinic.
We had about an hour together with her after hubby arrived at the hospital, and we were both there, right in front of her, as she passed. We cuddled her a little more afterwards, and she managed to pee on daddy’s clothes one last time. We brought her home, and hubby is going to bury her out behind the house when he gets home from work.
She was a beauty, you’ve posted her pictures before haven’t you?
Cats are incredibly stoic about pain, and will do everything they can to hide their discomfort, so don’t feel badly about not seeing this for a few weeks. Five years ago, Ratso, a 7 month old of mine suddenly started hiding in the closet, and was in obvious discomfort. By the time we figured out that he had eaten something and had a blockage in his intestine, it had gotten so completely infected there was no chance. Dr. Warren actualy called me into the office while he was on the operating table to show me. We said good bye there.
I’m so sorry for your loss, it’s a huge void there to fill. Remember her with love.
Another thread, over in Cafe Society is talking about Kinky Friedman, the author, singer and candidate for governor of Texas. This is something he wrote years ago, when his cat died. I look at it every time I hear of someone losing a cat.
Thanks everybody. My husband had to bury her when he got home from work today. He was going to wait until I got home, but it’s dark right now (6:00). I’ll go see where she is tomorrow.
She was a beautiful angel cat! I’m so sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is to see one of beloved furbabies pass. We had to put our Spot down a few months ago, due to Feline Leukemia. I understand your sadness.
Again, I’m so very sorry for your loss.
