My sister’s eight year old cat is very ill. She hasn’t eaten for five days and has been vomiting bile non-stop for four days. She’s been in the animal hospital since Saturday with no improvement, despite having been given fluids and anti-nausea medication. The vet first thought she might have swallowed something, and did x-rays, a sonogram and an endoscopy, but couldn’t find a foreign object. They also did a biopsy, and my sister will know tomorrow whether the cat has cancer, at which point the vet will recommend chemo. The cat is miserable and wasting away.
My sister is also miserable and doesn’t know what to do. She’s spent $2,000 so far, which is the upper limit of what she imagined she’d spend. She doesn’t have pet insurance.
I’m not a pet owner, but it seems to me that a merciful death is a good choice at this point. My sister is very upset thinking of the possibility that the cat could get better, and she doesn’t want to be responsible for her beloved cat’s death. On the other hand, she feels guilty for draining her family’s savings account on a cat. Can pet owners please let us know what they might choose to do in a similar situation?
As a pet owner who has at various times spent huge amounts of money on ill pets but at other times not because real life and savings matter more…
I would, perhaps, ask for a second opinion, a specialist or vet school. To be honest with a cat that’s a big perhaps. I’ve done it for a couple of dogs, but not for other dogs and never for a cat. Yes I know how that may sound to some. However, not all vets are equal and it could be her current vet is missing something.
There is no shame in refusing extraordinary vet care, if you can’t afford it, IMO.
Tell your sister she is not “responsible for her beloved cat’s death” if she backs down. Instead, she is responsible for giving her cat eight good, loved years. Which is way more than most cats on the planet get.
I’d wait for the biopsy results. If the cat has an easily treatable cancer with a good prognosis, I would go ahead and treat it. For example, I know that canine lymphoma has some reasonably easy, cheap palliative treatments that can let the dog live a good quality of life for a while, and I’d certainly do that sort of thing
But if the treatment is exceptionally expensive or painful, if the prognosis is poor, or if they couldn’t come up with any explanation for the symptoms even with the biopsy, I’d probably let the cat go. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for our animal friends is to help them die in peace. Quality of life matters for them more than a human who is intellectually capable of understanding why they’re suffering and that it will end.
It’s awful to have to put a pet to sleep, but I think it’s harder for the humans than it is for the cat.
While I definitely don’t agree with the idea that ‘it’s just a cat, you can get a new one’, I do think that it may be time to let the poor thing go. It’s been through so much trauma and stress already, even if it did come back as positive for cancer, I wouldn’t pursue it if it were my cat. Cancer treatments can be costly in animals and the treatment itself can be very stressful. Plus, if $2000 is more than she expected to pay, I can almost guarantee you chemo treatments are going to be more than that in the long run. It sounds like she’s gone above and beyond what many people would be able to do for a pet. At this point, she needs to have a talk with her veterinarian about quality of life and what her options are for long term care. Not knowing everything about the cat or the possible diagnosis though, I’d still opt to put the poor dear down if there’s nothing more to be done.
If the cat is miserable, and not improving, and has no chance of improving, then let the cat go. The cat isn’t enjoying life.
It’s very very hard to do this. But what is the point in trying to keep the cat alive? Just to prolong life? I don’t think it’s a kindness to keep the cat in a miserable state.
Exactly what I came into say. As I understand it (I’m fortunate enough to not have known anyone having to undergo it) chemo is a horrible process, and unlike humans who understand why horrible painful things are happening an animal would equate it to torture.
I’ve heard it said that animals seem to tolerate chemotherapy better than humans do. Apparently one reason for that is because many times animal chemo is meant more as a palliative treatment rather than an aggressive cure and therefore dosed lower.
In some cases, I think it’s justified to give an animal chemo if there is a reasonable hope for a good outcome. In others, though, it’s just an expensive way of drawing things out and I don’t think it’s wrong to decide not to pursue it even if it is an option.
I would concur that, in general, animal chemo seems to not be to hard on the animals so I would also wait for a biopsy and possibly ask for a second opinion. I’d check with the doctor - has she submitted the case to a board-certified intern or specialist? There are services that will review radiology and lab diagnostics and since they get more of the “can’t find it” questions, they often come up with the answers that a general vet won’t see enough of.
That being said, five days is a long time to see no improvement, IMHO. And even if it is cancer (in my very not-a-vet, I just do their paychecks experience ) the treatments most vets would initiate would have relieved some of the symptoms. To me, it sounds like a foreign body, especially the vomiting for four days straight part but it sounds like most of that has been explored except for possibly opening her up and taking a look. Sometimes that’s what it takes but it would significantly add to what she’s already invested. She may opt for the vet to do that but with the understanding that they will call her while her cat is still under, report the results and then call her during the surgery so she can make a decision to wake the cat up or to let her go.
Hope it turns out ok. Believe me, the fact that she has spent that much trying to save her cat puts her in a minority of pet owners (again, in my anecdotal experience) so she should not feel guilty at all if she’s reached the end of what she can afford and/or what she feels is fair to the kitty :(.
This is something that always makes me cry. Mostly because these are kind words and very wise.
Its hard to know when to put down a beloved pet. I’ve kept several too long and its something I regret when I think of them. I feel that I was being greedy and wanting more than the poor critter could offer. It was ME that mattered, not the pet. As a responsible pet owner, I should have had the poor critter put down when it was his/her time, not when I was ready.
I had a cancer kitty a few years ago–she was my beloved little Russian Blue and she was only five years old. When she was diagnosed with feline lymphoma I was devastated. We were in a really good place financially at the time due to selling some stock options, so we decided to try the chemo as long as she seemed to be having good quality of life. It gave us an extra eight months with her, and during almost all of that she was her sweet playful self and didn’t act at all like a cat with cancer. It was only after she started to go downhill and the tumors started returning that we realized it was time to let her go.
It wasn’t cheap, and it wasn’t easy. I had to take her in for treatments once a week, and by the time we were all done we’d spent…well, let’s just say that I joke now about having bought Meep a used car.
Would I do it again? Honestly, probably not. For a cancer diagnosis I would probably go with the palliative care to keep the kitty as comfortable as possible for as long as possible, but to try for a “cure”? I wouldn’t do it, partially because we’re not in the same financial situation now as we were then. We could still afford to do it, but it would hurt the budget a lot more.
But I will say that chemo doesn’t have to mean a miserable kitty. I was told at the beginning that animals tolerate it better than humans, and I saw that demonstrated in our little Meep.
My husband and I have two cats aged 12 and almost 15, and we have had preliminary discussions about how much money we’re willing to put into keeping sick old cats alive. We’re agreed that we won’t be bankrupting ourselves for a cat, but it’s hard to put an exact figure on how much you’ll pay for a cat’s life.
I agree with everyone saying that your sister should wait until the biopsy results, then make a decision based on that. If it’s cancer, I’d say talk with the vet about options and prices, and go from there. If the biopsy shows nothing, it might be time to let kitty go - it does sound like she’s been poisoned, and she has no quality of life at this point. It would be the merciful thing to do.
) the treatments most vets would initiate would have relieved some of the symptoms. To me, it sounds like a foreign body, especially the vomiting for four days straight part but it sounds like most of that has been explored except for possibly opening her up and taking a look. Sometimes that’s what it takes but it would significantly add to what she’s already invested. She may opt for the vet to do that but with the understanding that they will call her while her cat is still under, report the results and then call her during the surgery so she can make a decision to wake the cat up or to let her go.