My Kitty's Getting Old

[flybye023]

And I'm getting sad.

He'll be 15 in April. He has hyperthyroid and bad kidneys. He has a heart murmer in both valves. His balance is not too good. We've seen him fall off the kitchen chairs right after he jumped up 'cause he just couldn't stay on (he does not land on his feet in these instances). One time he almost didn't make it on in the first place because he didn't seem to have strenth enough in his hind legs. He jumped off the piano bench and his hind legs buckled under him. He walks everywhere now and never runs. He eeee-eases down when he sits/lies instead of just flopping down like he used to. He drinks about a gallon of water a week but won't eat some of his favorites (garbonzo beans, marshmallows). He spends all his time sleeping; we don't see him much anymore.

On the plus side, he still eats. He's gone from 15 to 13 pounds fairly rapidly but seems to be holding steady at 13. He purrs. He seems happy and bright eyed when he does come around.

[Seshat]

Your story really resonates with me right now.

My kitty is 18. She seems to be healthier than yours, but .. well, she's fallen off things, she seems to have trouble remembering what she wanted to do, or deciding what to do, she spends a lot of time sleeping, etc etc.

May both our kitties remain healthy-ish until the end, and may their final illnesses be brief and their deaths dignified and peaceful.

May they play together at the other end of the Rainbow Bridge.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm another with a kitty getting on in years. Ours is about 15, and closer to Seshat's in behavior. But she's been getting sick every so often and losing weight, before putting it back on again. Her health is definitely in decline, but she still gets around and bosses the other animals around as well.

^-.-^

[AccountingDrone]

We are lucky, Jezabel is turning 15 this coming summer and is still in good health. We just managed to get one of the dumped cats gentled down and vetted so he is becoming an inside cat [the other 2 are vetted and fixed now as well but they are staying outside as barn cats] so hopefully the feliway works and 5 transitions in fast because Jez is buried deep under the comforter and refuses to come out of the bedroom.

[flybye023]

May both our kitties remain healthy-ish until the end, and may their final illnesses be brief and their deaths dignified and peaceful.

May they play together at the other end of the Rainbow Bridge.

Can totally get on board with that.

Really, right now I think he's ok overall. There was a period of about three weeks starting at Christmas where he seemed to be going downhill fast but he's kind of leveled off at the moment.

[protege]

I know what it's like to have a pet in declining health. I lost Kitty at age 12 in 2007. He was really my grandmother's cat, since she had him since he was a kitten. But, after her farm was sold, I brought him home in 2006. He lived with me for about a year, before getting seriously ill. I knew something was wrong, because he spent most of his last days hiding behind the couch. He even came into my bedroom, put his paw on my shoulder as if to day "hey, I'm not good."

Never done that before. He'd never been in my bedroom, so I knew something was up. I couldn't get an appointment at the vet that morning, so I put him, his bed, food and water dish in the tub. I came home from work, and he hadn't moved. That night, I took him to the vet, and made the extremely difficult decision to end his suffering. He had fluid in his lungs, and was very sick. The operation to remove the fluid was not only expensive, but painful...and there was no guarantee that it wouldn't return. I couldn't bear to see him suffer, so he crossed the Rainbow Bridge that night

I have a feeling that Kitty...and Snow, his successor, are playing together with a huge ball of yarn and enjoying endless kitty treats. Snow was only 2, but had a heart attack and died in my kitchen...roughly 6 months after Kitty They're all playing together, no longer in pain, and are at peace now.

[Seshat]

You made the right decision, Protege. Or at least, the same decision we've already made for our old cat.

For the last five or so years, we've known that our old cat's next serious illness will be her last. If the vet can't put her right without causing suffering, she's better off going to sleep with the scent of her family around her.
(Smell is her only strong sense, now - she's at least partially blind and deaf, but can still smell things easily. She's always enjoyed curling up in the dirty-clothes basket; and my husband has one of her favourite shirts (of his) ready to be her .. blanket, I guess.)

One can explain to a human that medical suffering is temporary, and will help you get better in the long term. But not to a cat.

[flybye023]

That's kind of where we are with our cat. There are medical treatments available but they just manage symptoms. They don't halt or reverse damage, nor would they make him feel completely well again.

We've done our best to educate ourselves to the path his issues will follow and decided already where we draw the line in treatment vs. quality of life. That's the best we can do, I guess.

[Seshat]

Expect there to be a grey zone, where on one side, it's obvious that he's happy and life is better; and on the other side it's obvious that the kind thing to do is to let him go ... but in the middle, it's a rough choice.

The best we can do, if we're faced with an 'in the middle' period of time, is .. well, to consult with the vet, watch the kitty, and decide when enough's enough.

[Dreamstalker]

When McGriff died (we'd had him since I was 10 years old), our vet came right out and said that he didn't think surgery would help; they could go in and fix things, but there was no guarantee it would work for very long. The combination of congestive heart failure with his existing diabetes and kidney failure would mean that something catastrophic would happen later and any remaining time he had would be painful for him and extremely expensive for us.

So we decided that the far kinder thing to do would be to let him go. The one thing I could not do was stay in the room when they gave the injection; he was in so much pain that he had tried to lash out at me once and I didn't want my last memory to be seeing him in more distress.

[Seshat]

Our ideal end for Seph - if she doesn't simply die in her sleep - is for the vet to do a home visit, we snuggle her into a t-shirt of my husband's that she loves. We each say goodbye, and the vet applies the mercy shot.

But ideals don't always happen. And yes, if Seph is panicking or in pain, we may have to make the same cruel decision you did, Dreamstalker.

You have my sympathy.

We lost one cat very suddenly. He fell ill, we took him to the vet at the first available appointment. (In fact, on hearing the symptoms and knowing the cat, the vet tech created an appointment.)

The vet decided that the best thing to do was for her to keep him overnight and observe him, and actually take actions other than medication in the morning.

He died overnight, too suddenly for her to do anything.


Dreamstalker, I tell this story because I am comforted by one thing: he died in the arms and under the care of someone who cared.
Sure, the vet wasn't his family; but she cared, and she was doing the best she knew how for him. Your vet did the same, and your cat also died in the hands of someone who cared.

[LesserSouthernFroglet]

Sometimes it's very very hard to be a pet owner.

I've had to make the decision on several occasions, and it never, ever gets any easier. The only thing that has provided comfort is knowing that the beloved little furry isn't suffering any more.

One of my darling kitties, Milly, had long term kidney failure. She was on medication and a special diet, and twice weekly fluid infusions. She didn't enjoy them, but she tolerated them. Poor little darling had put up with this for a year. Last January she made her own decision, and went missing. I found her, too late to do anything, as I suspect she wanted, two days later, out where I could easily find her, so she'd obviously been somewhere close and just not coming home, despite me searching for her constantly. I still feel guilty about not maybe doing something (ie the big decision) earlier, but she honestly seemed happy enough until she disappeared.

Her best buddy, Morty, is 13 now, and he's starting to get a bit less active, the occasional miss when he jumps, and I suspect his vision might be starting to go. But he's still a happy camper (for a chronic whinger, anyway!) and I'll keep going on as we are, and do what we have to do as he ages, until the decision has to be made.

Hugs to all my fellow cat owners (hah! owned by cats, more like) who are dealing with aging kittehs.