posted
i didn't want to take over noemon's thread with an irrelevant topic.
i mentioned my 14 year old cat. two years ago i was told that he had an inoperable cancerous tumor. it was 9/12/01 and more than i could deal with at the time, so i brought him home to say goodbye. the vet gave him six months. a year later, his condition seemed no worse, so the vet decided that the tumor was benign. gee thanks, i thought, but i let it go.
well, another year has passed. he doesn't seem any worse than he was when i originally took him in, but aside from the tumor, he has arthritis and he throws up about every other day. what i'm struggling with is whether to keep on keeping on or have him put to sleep. i don't know for sure if he's actually suffering or how much (he doesn't have a problem tormenting my one year old kitten). i don't want to have him put to sleep for my own convenience, especially if he's still got some vitality, but is it fair to wait until he can't walk or can't eat at all or whatever the next stage is?
you guys are so good at presenting logical arguments, and i definitely need some impartial input.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
That's too bad. Does he still seem to enjoy life? Does he still purr? Can he maintain his weight?
Do you know why he vomits? Is is related to the tumor, or from something unrelated? Has the vet looked at him for that problem? There may be medicines or dietary changes that could help him. There may be something you could give him to help with the arthritis, too, I suppose.
You can also ask the vet's opinion on his quality of life again. This is an issue vets must deal with all the time.
Posts: 1990 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
My 13 year old siamese died last summer. He had gotten steadily thinner for the previous year and had thrown up a lot, but he still seemed very happy to be held like a baby or petted. He was more affectionate to me than the dog we replaced him with. (At least if you judge affection by the amount he drooled on me, he beat any dog by a country mile.)
He died a day before we returned from a two week vacation. The neighbor who was taking care of him at the time was really sad, and we were sadder.
We had decided not to put him to sleep because he still seemed like he enjoyed life. He explored the yard and brought in little critters right up until his last month.
As far as your cat goes, I don't think you should put him to sleep for your own convenience, but if he requires some surgery just so he can live a few more months, I'd probably make the decision to end the suffering.
You could call your vet and ask for his/her advice on when and why people choose to put their cats down. It would probably give you more perspective than the opinions of people who have a lot less experience with the subject.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
theca, yes he seems to be fairly content. he seeks my attention and when i give it he purrs readily. he doesn't seem to have any trouble keeping weight on. he's right around 18 pounds. i'm not sure exactly why he vomits. it's either hairballs or the tumor which is right where his large intestine meets his small intestine which is why it's inoperable. i tried the hairball goo, and that seemed to help. my problem is that with the kitten, i can't feed him special food. the vet did give me medicine for the arthritis, but he wasn't having any of it. he's had it so long, apparently, that i think he's learned to deal with it.
nato, that is so sad about your siamese. it's not like this cat is the only pet i've ever had, but he's the only one who's lasted this long. we used to live on a highway (where i come from two lanes is a highway) and that claimed every other pet we had. my cat is the only one that survived being hit. i didn't mean to make it sound like i actually would put him down for my own convenience, although it's hard to see him like this and not think about how it would be easier for me to know for sure that he's not suffering. and as far as asking the vet, i can do that, but it's still nice to hear personal stories and garner perspective that way.
and thanks for the input.
Posts: 1090 | Registered: Oct 2003
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fiazko, can you tell whether the vomit is actually vomit or a hairball? We have a cat, Barnaby, that has intestinal problems and was throwing up a lot. The vet gave him a steroid shot that cleared that right up. We now take him in every 2 or 3 months when he starts throwing up again and get him another shot. It's only about $15.
He also has to have special food because of this. Of course, he would rather eat the regular food that our other cat eats. We feed them twice a day and have to separate them everytime. Barnaby vacuums up his food quick and then sits at the door to the bedroom where the other one is eating ready to run in the room. Every once in a while, he beats us to the other cat's bowl and gets a mouthful of "real" food.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I'm really sorry to hear about your cat, fiazko. I know how hard it can be to figure out what to do. About 2 years ago, I was in a similar situation. My 12 year old male tabby (who had always been a very finicky eater with a very sensative tummy) began throwing up more than normal (no not hairballs, he just threw up often right after eating). He lost weight slowly, but steadily, but we could not determine why. At one point, we realized that he had not asked to be fed for a couple of days (he was always begging to be fed) and had thrown up more often than normal during that time. We took him to the vet and learned that, besides being dehydrated, he had some other serious problems (his liver was 3 times as large as it should have been and was pushing all his other organs around). The vet said that it was impossible to tell what exactly was wrong without quite a few more tests, some of which would be very expensive and painful for him. I took him home for the night to think about what to do. The next day he was significantly worse. He was in a great deal of pain (despite the pain medication given him the night before by the vet) and it just broke my heart. My little guy was in pain and I couldn't fix it. We took him back to the vet that afternoon to have him put to sleep. He had grown listless and didn't even cry in the car on the way there. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't afford the other tests that would to be done to figure out what the problem was, much less the solutions (and the vet had said that it was a distinct possibility that there wouldn't even be any treatment). It didn't help that I was going to be leaving several days later for a week+ trip, so he would be left alone (he HATED being alone). I was so sad to be losing my friend but I couldn't stand to see him in such awful pain when there was one way to stop it.
I would suggest consulting with your vet to get his/her opinion of your cat's quality of life. It sounds to me like he is still enjoying his life, but I don't know. Does he seem to be in pain? Can he do the things he wants to do? Is there anything else you can do to help him? *hug* I know it's difficult to figure out what to do, but I hope you are able to find a good solution.
posted
Cats throw up quite a bit. It sounds like every other day is a bit excessive. But just throwing up is not really a scary symptom in a cat.
I have had one cat with long hair who threw up hairballs a lot. (He loathed the cat laxative stuff, because it gave him diarrhea.) Another one would gobble her food down first thing in the morning and then it would often come right back up. She never had any symptom but that so the vet told us not to worry about it. Cat's vomit for many reasons and for no reason.
But if he seems to be sick in other ways, it could be a lot of different things, many of which are treatable. It doesn't sound to me like your cat is a candidate for euthanasia at this point at all. I euthanize cats if they are dying of something incurable and are suffering a lot in ways that I can't palliate. Otherwise I let them live.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I don't think throwing up once a day is likely to decrease much from your cat's quality of life-certainly not enough to justify putting it to sleep. Our dog throws up several times a day, and has ever since we got her, and it doesn't seem to bother her much, since she's a very happy and bouncy dog
Posts: 3493 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Our dog throws up several times a day, and has ever since we got her
Is it the same stuff every time?
---------------- Our older dog defines "food" as follows:
Is It Food?
1. If it fits into my mouth, it might be food.
2. If it does not fit into my mouth, but can be chewed into small enough pieces to fit into my mouth, it might be food.
3. If I eat it and it stays down, it's food! (This includes Kleenex, insects, hand cream, candy wrappers, weeds, paper, and the fluffy bits on the end of Q-tips.)
4. If I eat it and it comes back up, it still might be food, and I'll give it another chance.
5. If it comes back up more than twice, it's not food.
[ October 28, 2003, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: Yozhik ]
Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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posted
Be aware that diet plays a factor, as well, in cats throwing up. Sometimes if you switch cat foods from a hard cat food that may be irritating your cat's stomach to one that is more palatable, they will stop throwing up. My best friend swears by science diet, for instance. He's had many cats over the years and they've all been about the approximate size of small cars, so perhaps your cat would react more betterer to that. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
My first cat had double kidney failure. We waited a pretty long time before he was put to sleep. Like at the point where he was going to die anyways. He was definitely in pain for a few days before he died. He had no control of his bladder, he didn't eat, and he couldn't really move. Still you tell he was happy when we petted him. The question is for me: Is the cat still enjoying life? If I had no legs and I was in constant pain as long as I could be happy I would still want to live so that's the same approach I take with any pets.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
for those who were wondering, the vomit is either food, a hairball, or just liquid. most often it's food or liquid. it's been really helpful to hear from everyone. it sounds like maybe he's not as bad off as i think. the trouble with feeding him special food is my other cat is still pretty much a kitten and also, i am horrible with routine. if i had to establish feeding times, they would starve. i give them plenty of attention and i take care of their litter box, but for some reason, i don't do as well with the food. plus, both of them have this thing where, if they can see the bottom of the bowl, even if there's still food there, they won't eat until i fill it up. and if they feel they need food, the will mewl until i feed them. so feeding times are just not feasible. i will talk to the vet and see what she has to say. they're already amazed that he's still alive.
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That's a tough call.
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