My cat is a very sweet old guy who has been in my life almost as long as I can remember. I got him for my 5th birthday and he's been my best friend ever since. He was always a very happy and healthy cat, though his health did finally start to decline about 1-2 years ago when he started losing weight and showing signs of muscle loss in his legs. At this point he is skin and bones even though his appetite has not decreased at all. I thought he might have hyperthyroidism but the vet already ruled that out with a blood test.
I first started noticing signs of something more serious last December/January. That was around when he first started peeing outside of the litter box, which he had never done before. I took him to the vet and they treated it as a urinary/bladder infection and prescribed antibiotics. He peed out of the box once after that and then seemed to be fine.
Then, about a month ago, he had a horrible morning. He was throwing up, had a loose stool outside of the litterbox, and blood was dripping out of his privates. I rushed him to the vet, but by the time I got there the bleeding had stopped and he had stabilized. They gave him a combination injection and told me to come back if I saw any more symptoms. They warned me then that he might have either kidney disease or intestinal cancer, but they said that if it didn't happen again to not worry about it.
Well, last Tuesday morning he had an even worse incident than before. Several loose stools outside of the box, a lot of vomiting, and tons of blood, with blood also mixed in his pee that he did in several spots outside of the litterbox. This time, the vet said she was sure it was kidney disease. Unfortunately, he also now has a heart murmur, which when combined with age limits the kind of testing or treatment they can do for him. We talked for a while about treatment options and of course, euthanasia. Right now he is taking a steroid medicine that will hopefully stabilize him, but in the meantime I have been trying to decide when it's time. There is no cure for this, so all I can do is keep him comfortable until then.
The vet said he probably only has a few months left. I don't want to wait too long because I'm scared that if he has another incident that it's going to be worse and more painful than the last one. I don't want him to go out that way. But I'm so filled with doubt too. What if the steroid really makes a difference and helps him live a little longer? Would I be taking him too early? Yesterday he was still bleeding quite a bit but thankfully it seemed to stop overnight. He also seemed to return to his normal self, for the most part, and was fairly happy and alert this morning. I feel like it would probably be best to put him to rest while he's still happy and his symptoms are managed, but I want to have as much time with him as possible.
What do you guys think? What would you do?
tl:dr - My 19 year old cat is going through kidney failure and probably only has a few months to live. He has had two stressful and painful episodes in the last month or so that involved peeing blood and lots of vomiting. Otherwise, he is fairly happy and enjoys my company. Should I wait to put him to sleep or do it sooner?
[link] [comments]
from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/bhc3m7/help_my_19_year_old_cat_has_kidney_disease_when/
No comments:
Post a Comment