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**Long Post Warning.**
My 16 yr old cat, Lily, has been having constipation issues for 2.5 yrs. She’s been in the hospital, where they gave me no guidance after I brought her home on how to treat her constipation, only a bill for $2k. She was back and forth at the vet for enemas, and since then, we’ve completely taken her off dry food for the past 1.5 yrs, and she’s being fed a liquid diet both morning and night with a tiny pinch of psyllium husk, olive oil, wet food and beef broth. This has worked for the past 1.5 yrs, but more recently she’s been getting constipated more and more. I’ve started to “help” her make a bowel movement bc it was so stressful for her to go back and forth to the vet and I was nervous they would tell me to put her down bc we were getting enemas so often. In the past month or so, my husband and I have noticed a significant weight loss and she’s been constipated 2 times in less than a month for a few days at a time. Vomiting, not eating, isolating herself, crying—it’s awful to see. So we made another vet appt. At her last visit, she was 5.5lbs and the other day, she weighed 4.2lbs—she’d lost about 1/4 of her weight. From her last blood panel, she had elevated kidney levels (not sure of the number) but enough that it bothered the vet. At this point, I feel like my cats quality of life is no longer there, and I’m constantly stressed and worried when I’m not with her. Our vet said she’s still constipated and said it was up to us on how we wanted to proceed. I’m struggling bc I feel like her mind is still there but her tiny organs aren’t working like they used to. She’s uncomfortable when she’s held bc she’s so frail. It’s so awful to watch. We’ve taken her off the psyllium husk and will try miralax to see if there is a change. At this point we feel like we have nothing to lose. She can still jump and is social when she’s not sick, we just never know when she will get sick and it happens almost spontaneously. She has good and bad weeks. My question is do we let her go when she’s not in pain, or do we wait until she gets another bout of constipation and then decide? I don’t want to be selfish. I just want to make the right decision and not let her go too soon.
My 16 yr old cat, Lily, has been having constipation issues for 2.5 yrs. She’s been in the hospital, where they gave me no guidance after I brought her home on how to treat her constipation, only a bill for $2k. She was back and forth at the vet for enemas, and since then, we’ve completely taken her off dry food for the past 1.5 yrs, and she’s being fed a liquid diet both morning and night with a tiny pinch of psyllium husk, olive oil, wet food and beef broth. This has worked for the past 1.5 yrs, but more recently she’s been getting constipated more and more. I’ve started to “help” her make a bowel movement bc it was so stressful for her to go back and forth to the vet and I was nervous they would tell me to put her down bc we were getting enemas so often. In the past month or so, my husband and I have noticed a significant weight loss and she’s been constipated 2 times in less than a month for a few days at a time. Vomiting, not eating, isolating herself, crying—it’s awful to see. So we made another vet appt. At her last visit, she was 5.5lbs and the other day, she weighed 4.2lbs—she’d lost about 1/4 of her weight. From her last blood panel, she had elevated kidney levels (not sure of the number) but enough that it bothered the vet. At this point, I feel like my cats quality of life is no longer there, and I’m constantly stressed and worried when I’m not with her. Our vet said she’s still constipated and said it was up to us on how we wanted to proceed. I’m struggling bc I feel like her mind is still there but her tiny organs aren’t working like they used to. She’s uncomfortable when she’s held bc she’s so frail. It’s so awful to watch. We’ve taken her off the psyllium husk and will try miralax to see if there is a change. At this point we feel like we have nothing to lose. She can still jump and is social when she’s not sick, we just never know when she will get sick and it happens almost spontaneously. She has good and bad weeks. My question is do we let her go when she’s not in pain, or do we wait until she gets another bout of constipation and then decide? I don’t want to be selfish. I just want to make the right decision and not let her go too soon.