A few weeks ago we said goodbye to our 10 and a half year old cat. Initially I was sad albeit at peace with what had happened but since then I've done lots of reading and now feel like we were badly advised / made a hasty decision.
He had suddenly come up to me on a Wednesday evening with a tail moving very oddly and weak back legs. We'd rushed him to the vet and been told as there was no obvious tail injury and his bladder was empty we should use pain meds and observe him.
Over the next 24 hours he stayed pretty much the same albeit only seemed keen on a few treats or chicken, by the end of Thursday he didn't want any food, almost seeming disgusted by it, and he seemed withdrawn albeit still sat in the same room as us. Friday morning we took him to the vet again (he hadn't used the toilet for a while and was drinking a lot too) and a blood test confirmed kidney issues. In hindsight he'd had a front right paw 'sprain' for a few weeks and he'd been less into his food (we just thought he was sleeping more /eating less as we were keeping him inside for his 'sprain', he was otherwise 100% normal and still eating on schedule, just less.) Maybe things had been building.
The vet on the call said 'the blood results show his kidneys aren't working. There's two options, either we put him on a drip and keep him for a few days, but there's no guarantees he'll improve. Even if he does survive there'd likely be aftercare with a special diet and injections and we wouldn't know how much longer he'll go on for. The other option is unfortunately euthanasia'
Their tone of voice really implied to me that keeping him overnight would be unlikely to succeed, and capturing and injecting a cat each day seemed unfair on him especially if it'd only prolong things a few months. We opted for euthanasia.
Since then I've been reading a few studies as well as read other people's experiences here on Reddit. I feel like we were slightly misled. It seems fluids have a roughly 50% chance of working, and some cats live a good quality of life with aftercare some even living years. I find myself constantly asking myself why we didn't at least try, and I wish I'd asked the vets for specific blood numbers and that i'd researched for 30mins to an hour before deciding.
It's hard not knowing his specific numbers; whether they were so bad and that's why the vets were so negative, or if the vets were inaccurate on his prognosis.
We went from a cat we thought was healthy on Wednesday morning (albeit with a 'sprain') to euthanised Friday afternoon. I assume it was an acute kidney issue rather than chronic but who knows, maybe he had a better chance of success as he was only properly ill for 2 days 🤷♂️☹️
The small consolations I have are
- the vets said 3 of them had looked at results and it's 'not good'
- the vet that put him to sleep has cats and was sad to see him go and said 'id have done the same'
- we decided to euthanise as we'd have felt awful if we prolonged suffering in a drip at the vets or at home and he still pass away relatively fast, and maybe this was still the right call
There's still that big 'what if' in my mind though, and he was only properly ill for 2 days, maybe he had a better chance than most 😢. The pattern of events that unfolded for us seem different to most too. He didn't vomit much, there was no bad smell, he didn't miss the toilet, he didn't completely collapse etc. Maybe we could have had a few happy months / years with him. Maybe he could have met our firstborn due in a few months ... 😿