I just had my 13 year old Siamese cat, Alfie, put to sleep earlier today. I am beyond devastated and have started to regret my decision. To be sure, he was in a bad state and that was, of course, my main motivation - to end his pain.
Late last year, Alfie was diagnosed with CKD. He was only at stage 2, but he did have hypertension. While he was getting his blood pressure checked, they noticed that he also had a heart murmur. After further testing, it was determined to be benign.
Early March of this year was when the real problems began. He suddenly fell very ill. He had vomited and was lethargic and cried out in great pain when I picked him up. The vet said he was very dehydrated, so they took him to dehydrate him. While there, he pooped bloody stool, so he as put on antibiotics and other meds. He quite eating and drinking completely and I had to syringe feed him and give him subQ fluids for a few days. He eventually got his appetite back, but was continuing to have mucousy diarrhea for a couple weeks.
I eventually got the diarrhea under control, but then he started to lose interest in eating again and finally stopped eating altogether. Then after a few days, the diarrhea came back with a vengeance. This involved many trips to the vet and many tests. We ran a fPLI test and it came back as mildly elevated and the vets thought that that was probably due to his kidney disease. Then we had a TLI (Cobalomin) test done and he was negative for EPI, but had low B12 and high folate. So we started giving him B12 shots, but with minimal/no improvement. We never got to the six week mark to have him re-tested.
The vet reran labs on him to see if his kidney disease was getting worse. His kidney values were actually better, but he now had anemia and an elevated white blood count. We put him back on the metronidazole to try to get his diarrhea under control again. Eventually, our main vet started him on steroids and that seemed to finally help the diarrhea. All this time, I am syringe feeding him approximately 200 calories a day. He tolerated this pretty well and only started vomiting a couple times last week. Even though he was getting enough calories, he didn't gain any weight and he dropped to his lowest weight yet.
Every day, he was getting a little worse. He never regained his urge to play after the initial illness. Then he refused to do other things he liked to do, like go outside on our patio to look around. He started sleeping all the time, then started getting weak and wobbly. The last few days, he started hiding almost all the time. He would purr when I came to pet him but he would never come to me anymore.
A few days ago, I thought his gums looked pale so we brought him back into the vet for a CBC recheck and radiographs. CBC showed his anemia had gotten worse in just a week. X-rays showed a number of things. He had a little fluid around his lungs, a suspicious shadow around his heart area that was thought to be a mediastinal mass and gastric distention that was thought to be functional ileus. She also noticed that his heart murmur had gotten worse and he had a galloping heartbeat. Our vet had a high suspicion that Alfie had intestinal lymphoma that had spread to the mediastinal area.
We tried doubling his steroid pills, but he continued to go downhill. Last night he seemed to be very uncomfortable and in real pain. His purring started to have a whining/crying noise to it. Then this morning, I noticed that his breathing had started to become a little labored.
When the radiograph results came back, my vet and I discussed the possibility of referring him for an ultrasound. Alfie was always a very anxious cat and I (and my vet) thought that in his present condition, it wasn't worth it to put him through all that. Then this morning, I was worried that his labored breathing would get worse overnight and he would be in such distress all night, so I decided to end his suffering.
When we took him in today, I had the vet check him over once more. Now he had raspy sounds in his lungs, which probably meant he had more fluid around the lungs, and his belly was so distended. She said she could feel fluid in his abdomen, so we went ahead with the euthanasia.
I really thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but then I came across another post that said that cats that are in really bad shape with lymphoma can be turned around with chemotherapy - even cats with anemia and high white blood counts. I never even had an ultrasound or a biopsy done. Maybe if I had gotten another opinion, I could have saved him. I was nearly hysterical with guilt when I read that. Now the trauma and grief of putting him to sleep has been compounded by this immense guilt. I can't stop crying and my chest is absolutely burning with anxiety.
I mean the what ifs are killing me. I had to syringe feed him every day for around a month - what if I had pushed to get him a feeding tube instead to reduce his and my stress. What if I had searched the internet first to see if lymphoma was worth trying to get into remission, even in his condition. What if I had pushed to get repeat x-rays earlier so we could have found this earlier. The list goes on and on.
I know I am rambling on so much that not many people are going to read all this. I suffer from depression and am on anti-depressants and xanax for anxiety. The last few months have been torture for me, making my depression creep up again and today has put me over the edge a little bit. I'm sure time will heal a little bit, but what if I can't get over the grief of putting my little soul mate to sleep too early.
Late last year, Alfie was diagnosed with CKD. He was only at stage 2, but he did have hypertension. While he was getting his blood pressure checked, they noticed that he also had a heart murmur. After further testing, it was determined to be benign.
Early March of this year was when the real problems began. He suddenly fell very ill. He had vomited and was lethargic and cried out in great pain when I picked him up. The vet said he was very dehydrated, so they took him to dehydrate him. While there, he pooped bloody stool, so he as put on antibiotics and other meds. He quite eating and drinking completely and I had to syringe feed him and give him subQ fluids for a few days. He eventually got his appetite back, but was continuing to have mucousy diarrhea for a couple weeks.
I eventually got the diarrhea under control, but then he started to lose interest in eating again and finally stopped eating altogether. Then after a few days, the diarrhea came back with a vengeance. This involved many trips to the vet and many tests. We ran a fPLI test and it came back as mildly elevated and the vets thought that that was probably due to his kidney disease. Then we had a TLI (Cobalomin) test done and he was negative for EPI, but had low B12 and high folate. So we started giving him B12 shots, but with minimal/no improvement. We never got to the six week mark to have him re-tested.
The vet reran labs on him to see if his kidney disease was getting worse. His kidney values were actually better, but he now had anemia and an elevated white blood count. We put him back on the metronidazole to try to get his diarrhea under control again. Eventually, our main vet started him on steroids and that seemed to finally help the diarrhea. All this time, I am syringe feeding him approximately 200 calories a day. He tolerated this pretty well and only started vomiting a couple times last week. Even though he was getting enough calories, he didn't gain any weight and he dropped to his lowest weight yet.
Every day, he was getting a little worse. He never regained his urge to play after the initial illness. Then he refused to do other things he liked to do, like go outside on our patio to look around. He started sleeping all the time, then started getting weak and wobbly. The last few days, he started hiding almost all the time. He would purr when I came to pet him but he would never come to me anymore.
A few days ago, I thought his gums looked pale so we brought him back into the vet for a CBC recheck and radiographs. CBC showed his anemia had gotten worse in just a week. X-rays showed a number of things. He had a little fluid around his lungs, a suspicious shadow around his heart area that was thought to be a mediastinal mass and gastric distention that was thought to be functional ileus. She also noticed that his heart murmur had gotten worse and he had a galloping heartbeat. Our vet had a high suspicion that Alfie had intestinal lymphoma that had spread to the mediastinal area.
We tried doubling his steroid pills, but he continued to go downhill. Last night he seemed to be very uncomfortable and in real pain. His purring started to have a whining/crying noise to it. Then this morning, I noticed that his breathing had started to become a little labored.
When the radiograph results came back, my vet and I discussed the possibility of referring him for an ultrasound. Alfie was always a very anxious cat and I (and my vet) thought that in his present condition, it wasn't worth it to put him through all that. Then this morning, I was worried that his labored breathing would get worse overnight and he would be in such distress all night, so I decided to end his suffering.
When we took him in today, I had the vet check him over once more. Now he had raspy sounds in his lungs, which probably meant he had more fluid around the lungs, and his belly was so distended. She said she could feel fluid in his abdomen, so we went ahead with the euthanasia.
I really thought I was doing the right thing at the time, but then I came across another post that said that cats that are in really bad shape with lymphoma can be turned around with chemotherapy - even cats with anemia and high white blood counts. I never even had an ultrasound or a biopsy done. Maybe if I had gotten another opinion, I could have saved him. I was nearly hysterical with guilt when I read that. Now the trauma and grief of putting him to sleep has been compounded by this immense guilt. I can't stop crying and my chest is absolutely burning with anxiety.
I mean the what ifs are killing me. I had to syringe feed him every day for around a month - what if I had pushed to get him a feeding tube instead to reduce his and my stress. What if I had searched the internet first to see if lymphoma was worth trying to get into remission, even in his condition. What if I had pushed to get repeat x-rays earlier so we could have found this earlier. The list goes on and on.
I know I am rambling on so much that not many people are going to read all this. I suffer from depression and am on anti-depressants and xanax for anxiety. The last few months have been torture for me, making my depression creep up again and today has put me over the edge a little bit. I'm sure time will heal a little bit, but what if I can't get over the grief of putting my little soul mate to sleep too early.
