A bit more about the Boopsie

[xiphias]

So, we took her to a vet for an ultrasound to get some idea of what is happening, and how she is doing. Most of her internal organs look pretty good, but she's not eating. The vet suggests GI tract disease of some sort -- an inflammation in her intestines that is making her not want to eat.

She's got a very high heart rate (260 bpm, about, and about 160 is normal for a cat -- some of that was "being poked and prodded by vets", but not all of it), and high blood pressure. Those are related to her overactive thyroid, of course, and need to be brought under control. And she's not eating.

So . . . if we can control whatever's going on in her GI tract well enough to get her to eat, and if we can bring the metabolism under control, and the hypertension under control, then she may have a few more years in her.

Or not. We don't know, and maybe CAN'T know.

And the thing is -- this gets expensive.

So we now we have the awful task of trying to balance "quality of life", "quantity of life", and " time and money". What CAN we give her, what would she WANT us to give her, what are we going to do?

In some ways, if she curled up next to us tonight, and went to sleep purring and happy and warm and loved, and didn't wake up, there would be ways in which that would be good. At some point, and I hope it IS years away, we're going to have to make the choice of putting her to sleep -- I know a few cats who died of misfortune, but I know more who died because they became sick enough to be in enough pain that their people chose euthanasia for them. And part of me doesn't ever want to be in that position, and wants Boopsie to die a comfortable, peaceful, natural death, loved and at home.

But I don't think that's realistic. I think what we're actually looking at is choosing between expensive and labor-intensive care for the next several years, and eventually euthanasia (which is what many, many of my friends have done, and so I'd feel AWFULLY guilty if we didn't choose that), or palliative care for a shorter period of time, and then euthanasia.

What I WANT to happen is for Boopsie to wake up tomorrow miraculously cured. But I'm not really expecting that one.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

What your friends have chosen has nothing to do with the case. They are the arbiters of what they can do, what they have to give. You are the arbiters of what you have to give. You can't give more than you have. There are some limits that a reasonable person accepts when they adopt a cat -- one doesn't choose euthanasia because one has redecorated and doesn't want cat hair on the new furniture, or somesuch -- but you're already a long way past that minimum.

Sometimes they surprise you, also. I had a ferret once with pancreatic cancer... almost a universal for male ferrets if they live long enough, but he was fairly young for it, only about 3. The vet told us that there was a $1500 surgery which might make it go away, thereby letting him live a normal ferret lifespan of about 5-6 years... or might kill him on the operating table; these things could be tricky. Or there was a medication which was less expensive, and might keep him alive for another 6 months to a year. We chose the medication, after ascertaining that the slow deterioration involved wouldn't cause him pain... he'd just get sleepier and less active, and eventually wouldn't wake up. Well, that's what happened, but it took more than three years. He was a nice old ferret before the morning he fell asleep for good. No way we could've predicted that, when what we thought we were giving was basically palliative care with perhaps a bit of a slowdown effect.

Good luck with your kitty, whatever you decide.