In december, my beloved cat went into serious congestive heart failure.
After three days at the emergency vet, he was stabilized enough to go home. They put him in two medications twice a day and scheduled me for blood tests with my vet and a follow up with a cardiologist.
He had his blood tested once a month for the next two months. First they found his kidneys and electrolyte levels good, but his potassium a bit low. We started potassium supplements and after the second recheck we lowered the dose and lowered the dose once more.
The cardiologist was able to do X-rays of his chest and heart and found that his heart was significantly enlarged and he was having pretty regular arrhythmias. We left the cardiologist with two additional medicine.
From December to early March, he did well on his four medications per day. He was given three by syringe in the mouth every morning and night and one pill mid afternoon.
It is a bit of a struggle to give him medicine, but I can manage it.
For the past few weeks, he has been gagging and coughing occasionally. This week, we had our recheck at the cardiologist. The cardiologist said that his heart is still very enlarged and the sack around his heart is full of liquid.
The cardiologist upped one of his medications and said we were not out of options. We could continue with the medication, schedule several more blood tests and eventually schedule a procedure to drain the fluid from his lungs.
Currently, I administer medicine six times per day. Other than the medicine administration, he is a happy and lively cat. But he hates the vet and gets SO anxious.
I am planning on euthanizing him at the end of the month. Although he is a happy and energetic guy, I don’t want to put him through any more stressful vet visits. His heart disease is incurable and he will only continue to decline.
I feel trapped. My alarm goes off six times a day and it is ruining my relationship with him to pin him down and give him so much medicine. I can’t go anywhere, I am essentially always watching the clock for the next medicine time.
The hardest part is that he seems fine. I’m wondering if I should wait for things to get worse? He has been coughing about one or twice a week and that is really scary when it happens.
I guess I’m struggling with the idea of being a week too early or a day too late.
TLDR: my cat has been diagnosed with irreversible heart failure. I’d like to put him down before the vet visits become too much and he becomes in pain.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/m7oegz/struggling_with_the_decision_to_say_goodbye/
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