She is about 4 years old and has been in pretty good health up until now so this is a bit of a surprise. We’re trying to stay hopeful until we see how the lab work pans out. With luck it will be something that we can treat fairly easily without causing her too much discomfort.
There is also the problem of how much we can afford - we’ve spent a lot of money so far to get to this point and we’ll need to weigh all the factors to see what we can do. I hate to have to look at it from the money point of view but there is a limit.
Don’t ever feel guilty about running out of money. You’ve already done more and spent more than alot of pet owners would ever think about doing. As much as you love your cat, there comes a point where it becomes just too impractical to continue with treatment–you can literally spend thousands and thousands of dollars, and if you don’t have pet insurance, this can become incredibly burdensome. But then again, as ** rocking chair ** said, just wait and see what the lab screens show. It could always be good news.
Aw gosh. Sorry to hear. Hope the tox report comes out well.
We lost our 12-yr-old cat week before last to an incredibly fast-growing cancer. Not gonna plague anyone with the details.
We are down to 4 cats now. Glad to see some other multiple-cat owners here!
tanookie, I am just curious, do you use that clumping/flushable litter? A friend relayed to me that his vet had just told him that they seem to be seeing increased cancer rates in cats who’ve been using that litter for a long time. Apparently no formal studies yet, the evidence is just anecdotal at this point - vets talking to each other - but now I ask every time I hear about feline cancer.
Not trying to start an urban legend here, & no, I don’t own stock in a cat-litter company. It’s just a concern.
Ghostrider… no clumping litter here… we use good old fashioned clay. One box/cat.
We’re hoping for good news for once. This has been a very long week of increasingly bad news from the vet. I hoped they’d find some string and we’d all be ok!
Tanookie, don’t ever beat yourself up about not being able to afford chemo, or for thinking about the situation from a financial standpoint. For one thing, you’ve done a lot more than many owners would. For another thing, money is a fact of life that can’t be ignored, and you’ve got other family members to consider.
Aside from the money thing, you also have to consider what’s in Gabby’s best interests. Chemo is not only expensive, it’s incredibly stressful for owner and pet. Weekly trips to the vet, being poked and prodded, blood draws and injections, the side effects of the chemo, it’s all really rough on an animal, and successful chemo usually doesn’t buy them more than a couple of years. You not only have the stress of hauling the animal around, you have to worry about how she’s feeling, whether the chomo’s gonna work, if the cancer will come back, and so on.
It’s a hard decision, no matter what. Owning a pet is setting yourself up for inevitable heartbreak. We know we’ll always have to say goodbye before we’re ready, and that we’re going to get hurt in the end. But we open our hearts and our lives, and yes, our wallets anyway, because we know that the expense and the mess, and the unavoidable pain is outweighed by the light and love animals bring into our lives.
