The choice of euthanising my cat was difficult. Ending his life over money issues is something I started to hate myself over. But what I realize is that I, and any other pet owner feeling guilt, have to do is acknowledge the quality of life of the pet thereafter.
When the vet described the amount of medical treatment required just to develop a clearer prognosis, it became more than a money issue. I hadn’t realized it at the time because I was blinded by the grief and the guilt of feeling that it was a “financial decision.”
While cats can live longer, my cat was still a senior cat at 14 years old. He was terrified of the visits to the cat hospital and he was exceptionally difficult to medicate, even when at home where he’s supposedly more relaxed. It put an incredible strain on him such that he’d drool when he thought we were going to administer his pills or syringe feed him— merely at the sight of anything that looked like a syringe would set him off.
It got so bad that during one pilling session, my cat actually started to snap his jaws at my hand. My cat can sometimes get a little “bitey” but it wasn’t out of hostility. He had never ever been hostile towards any of us in his entire life. But I knew we had crossed a threshold now and things were dire.
Apart from his current pancreatitis and inflammatory bowel disease, he now had liver complications (he was jaundiced) and the vet indicated he had a developing problem with his lungs that could manifest itself later. I now realize that my cat’s future would be have been more hospitalization, more injections, more syringe feedings, more tests… And it wouldn’t stop at the hospital because we’d have to medicate him at home. There’d be no respite from it.
We’d be spending thousands of dollars to put my cat, a senior cat, through sheer hell and all of it wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed his longevity. His quality of life would suffer severely. We’d suffer too because we’d be his source of pain and stress and fear.
The pain and guilt is still there. But I believe it was the right decision, the kinder decision to put my cat to sleep instead of prolonging his suffering.
