I have a 6 year old orange male tabby. This cat was a literal dream come true for my fiancee and I, who spent the first years of our relationship in a apartments that didn't allow pets. We finally moved across the country, got a house, and decided we wanted to get a cat. She got him from the farm she worked at as a kitten, and we have had him ever since.
About 3 years ago, we got home from a vacation at 3 in the morning to find him writhing in agony on the floor. We didn't know what to do, so we rushed him to an emergency vet in a neighboring city and were able to get him there about 4 am. It turns out he had developed a kidney and bladder issue that basically crystallized his urine and didn't allow him to pass it, building up toxicity. We both worked at the time, and had extra income as at this point, we did not have a child, so we made the decision to get him a life-saving surgery, which cost about $6,000. We were in debt for it until very recently, but he survived. The last 3 years however, he has intermittently developed more issues, mainly with passing his stool and it being painful to urinate. This has had him in and out of the vets office to perform enemas and whatnot several times at about $150 a pop. He is also required to be on a special diet which would improve kidney and urinary functions for the remainder of his life. We've done that for the last 3 years. I would wager a fairly safe guess that we have spent nearly $10k of money we didn't really have to keep this cat alive in the last 3 years, and the problems still persist intermittently. The vet told us that it is likely not an issue that can be fixed as she believes the nerve endings in his rectum were damaged during surgery. The best we can do is to force feed him stool softeners 3 times a day for the rest of his life and hope we can find a balance between constipation and shitting all over the floor. The problem is, I am the only one who can give him his medicine, as he's really only docile enough to allow that with me. This effectively keeps us from ever going out of town.
On top of the financial burden of the cat, we now have a 1 and a half year old son, and my fiancee no longer works, leaving me to pay all of our bills with my meager salary. We've looked into special needs cat rescues, but none in our area are accepting new cats, and honestly, I don't think any other place would be able to give him the care we've given him for the last 3 years. Even the vet encouraged us to talk about making the difficult decision to put him down.
Yesterday, after yet another vet visit for the issue, the idea was brought up again, and my fiancee and I both agreed that we had been delaying the inevitable for as long as we financially and emotionally could, and that we would have him put down the next day (today). With this in mind, I wanted to spend a great last evening with him, so I made sure to cuddle him on the couch and give him lots of loving. We let him sleep outside of the cat room last night, which we normally don't allow because he tends to leave poop in various places, but we opted to just clean whatever messes he made so he could have maximum comfort last night.
While he was sitting on my lap, soaking up all the affection last night, he just looked at my eyes, and pawed my face with adoration and love, like he trusted me more than any other being on earth. He seemed happy in that moment, and that has been making me second guess the decision to end his life. Would I be betraying his trust, or is it more selfish of me to keep him alive and allow him to spend most of his time in pain, even though he has some really great moments.
The fact is, I love him, but I can't afford the time or money to continue this pattern, which seems like not much of an existence anyway. Help me, reddit.
TLDR: Cat is in pain most of the time, and I can't afford his medical expenses, but he means a lot to me and still has happy moments where he shows he trusts me and loves me.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/bgu3tu/am_i_making_the_right_decision_bu_putting_down_my/
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