Anxiety and Pets

This may not be the usual post about pets and anxiety, at least according to my searches on the internet.

People always say that pets reduce anxiety and stress in their owners and this is certainly the case some of the time with my cat. However, there are long stretches of time with my cat where she sends my anxiety through the roof. My cat is older, around 10, I got her when she was 9. From day one she has been a bundle of issues, from bad teeth I had to work two jobs to have removed, to discovering hyper-thyroidism, and more recently the early stages of kidney failure, all within the span of a year and a half. Now whenever my cat acts slightly off, be that being sluggish, not eating as much or a bout of constipation I get really stressed. I used to drag her to the vet, only to be told that it was gas, or nothing, "just give her some pumpkin", and getting a bill to boot. So now shes been (maybe?) ill, meowing loudly while going to the bathroom, and eating less. She's done this before, and usually it passes after a few days. But I'm still anxious. I am reluctant to take her to the vet because there have been so many false alarms before.

My question is this, how do you, especially the owners of older pets, deal with the stress and worry that your friend might not always be around , or that minor issues might lead to big problems? I'm so tired of pulling my hair out and feeling like either a worry wort or a heartless monster for feeling reluctant about taking her to the vet. I am resolved that if it goes on for too much longer then I will take her to the vet, and yes, give her some pumpkin. But in the mean time, how can I calm down??

submitted by /u/Abuddend
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ehvlx4/anxiety_and_pets/