Poll: cat needs surgery

[JohnDeere 0]

We got 2 Himalayan cats. One had a heart murmur. We had to take that cat to Texas A&M to a heart specialist. It needed heart surgery to get a heart valve put in. My wife and 3 girls had a fit when I said it made no since. So we were going to do it but the company that sells the valve would not sell it to us cause it is made for baby's and they only make so many per year. But it would cost between 3 and 6k. I didn't want to do it but would have gotten hell if I didnt do it.

BTW that was over 4 years ago and the cat still hasn't had any issue's. A&M said they had never seen an issue like that with a cat

Nothing opens like a Deere!

You ignorant fool! Checks are for workers!

[rwieder 0]

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Emotional: She's a member of our family and we love her. Money is no object.

I think in your statement above, therin lies your answer. Don't mind me though, I'm an animal lover anyway.

-Richard-
"You're Holding The Rope And I'm Taking The Fall"

[Heatmiser 0]

I'm allergic to pretty much all animals, hence, I really don't get personal attachments to them. I kind of understand those that do, but 4 grand? Sorry. Guess no thank you note from the Humane Society this month.

What you say is reflective of your knowledge...HOW ya say it is reflective of your experience. Airtwardo

Someone's going to be spanked! Hopefully, it will be me. Skymama

[Sapphire 0]

What does it matter if the cat was free, cost $35, or $3500? The choice you made by bringing the cat home was to take care of it - it's now a member of your family and has been for 9 years. I don't see a dilema. It doesn't sound like money would be an issue as you said just use the money on skydiving gear... so before you have this poor kitty doomed with a major injury/issue... pay the 'maybe' couple hundred dollars for a vet bill and find out what actually is wrong first. Could be something a simple shot (and NO, I don't mean final) may cure or some medicine. Your kids were free, remember... and you didn't pick them - yet would you put out a poll to see what you should do if one of them were limping? Good luck and I hope the kitty feels better soon!!

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" ~ Helen Keller

[PLFXpert 0]

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Practical: Its a 9 year old $35 cat. Why spend $4000 on it?

So "it" cost $35.

Clearly your "we-have-it-done-of-course" wife and children view kitty as a "he" or "she" they adore.

You love your wife and kids, they love the cat, ergo you are an asshole if you do not take kitty to the vet. It might be a $40/month medicine and unless 9-year-old kitty lives another 8 years, you are still not looking at $4k. Maybe kitty just needs a $400 surgery.

I mean--at this point--you do not know what is wrong; aren't you are being a bit of a drama king?

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[tigra 0]

I had a cat with a heart murmur- he had cardiomyopathy (sp?). The initial testing and annual cardiologist visits (yes, there ARE cardiologists for cats!) were not cheap, but the medicine they put him on that kept him happy, healthy and active for several years was really cheap and I got it at the regular drug store. I think those extra years I had with him were worth it- he was a great cat. (Also a "mutt" adopted from the local animal hospital for free ...... )

[PLFXpert 0]

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Sometimes putting them down is the most humane thing to do for them.

I agree (and wish this option were available to people, too), however, he does not know what is wrong. At nine-years, kitty is not "old".

I agree with your statement on the basis that some people just cannot "let go" when it becomes more about their attachment than the animal's best interest at heart.

Having said that, if there exists a fountain of youth, I would spend my last dime buying a drop for my Sabre. I do not even want to think about...

Sabre pierced my heart with his kitty claw and has been laying on top of it purring ever since.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[docjohn 0]

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I find it interesting that this question was proposed by a Doctor.

Why? Doctors aren't entitled to ethical delimmas?

Doc
http://www.manifestmaster.com/video

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Ok, we have a 9 year old cat. Bought it as a mutt for $35. Now its limping around so I'm thinking arthritis or something like that. So I pose the question to my wife "What do we do if it needs a $4000 operation?". Her answer "We have it done of course!"

What would you do?

Assuming it wouldn't mean my immediate family going hungry (some people come first) and willard wouldn't be suffering after (death would sometimes be more merciful), shop around for a good price and get the operation (there's latitude here). Willard is a member of the family.

[Jumpdude 0]

Well damn! The title is "Poll: cat needs surgery", I thought it was "Pollcat needs surgery"

Refuse to Lose!!!
Failure is NOT an option!
1800skyrideripoff.com
Nashvilleskydiving.org

[DavidB 0]

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Well damn! The title is "Poll: cat needs surgery", I thought it was "Pollcat needs surgery"

Sounds like a discussion for SC... Ethical dilemma & all!

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[FlyingJ 0]

One important thing I haven't seen questioned is what exactly does $4,000 mean to you?

Does it mean that's a few thousand less in a savings account still quite large enough to be a good buffer for unexpected emergencies or does it mean you are going to have trouble making a mortgage payment or will have to put it on a credit card without the ability to pay it of quickly?

Killing threads since 2004.

[Tuna-Salad 0]

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Put it to sleep. That or "accidentally" leave the door open for it to wander out and get lost. As much as they can become "a part of the family," animals are just that- animals.

We were recently faced with a possible $300 surgery to have my 6-month old cat's eye removed. I told my wife up front that I'd opt for putting him down. Fortunately his eye has healed and he's going to be fine.

Yeah.. human beings are just animals too.. our sole purpose is to reproduce.. so does that mean when someone breaks an ankle or something we are supposed to lead them into a field and execute them?

Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

[MikeJD 0]

I think when the time comes to put an animal to sleep - which could be at least 10 years off for yours! - we realise how much keeping pets is about us rather than about them.

Cats and dogs don't have unfulfilled ambitions, or plans for the future. They neither know nor care whether life is long or short, as long as the next few minutes offer a warm bed, food and the affection of their human companions. They live in the moment, as Cesar Milan likes to say.

It broke my heart to have my cats put down, but I did it knowing that keeping them alive was for my benefit, not theirs. One of them I could have had medicated so that he might have perked up again for a while, only for me to have to watch him deteriorate again. He'd have got nothing extra from life that he hadn't already enjoyed for a few thousand days.

I say go to the vet and find out what's really wrong, which may be next to nothing, before you even think beyond that, and pay as much as you can afford to keep her comfortable and happy for as long as she lives. But when the time eventually comes to euthanise her, recognise that the decision is for you and your family - of all of you, the cat herself cares the least.

[kingbunky 3]

very well put.

"Hang on a sec, the young'uns are throwin' beer cans at a golf cart."
MB4252 TDS699
killing threads since 2001

[normiss 893]

Man the timing of this...I received an e-mail from my best buddy today. I've copied it below.


I’m sorry if this story is boring and way too long, but writing seems to sooth me. Our 10 year old black Labrador retriever “Freebie” had to be put down yesterday with almost no warning. My heart is broken. Barb’s heart is broken. Our girl Shepherd “Fozzie” keeps looking out the fence gates all around the house for him, and she is sad also. Barb let Fozzie out of the fence into the back yesterday afternoon and she immediately sprinted off to look for Freebie in the back field where they would play every day. She came walking back a few minutes later with her head hung low. Our Dachshund “Shorty” has nobody to play “that’s mine” with – their never ending thievery of each other’s cookies.

About a month ago his stomach started bloating a little, so we had the vet come to the house to check him out. A cursory exam didn’t show any obvious problems, so we would just monitor him. Freebie had an extremely diverse pallet and liked to eat anything (anything known to man except bananas), so considering we indulged him since he never had problems before being a garbage disposal, we thought maybe he just had food combination gas problems. Over Thanksgiving weekend he started moaning a little when lying down and his stomach was more bloated, but considering the holiday weekend it would be very hard to get hold of a vet to look at him (plus he just inhaled turkey). So we did a little research and found we could give him Mylanta, and after a dose of that Sunday he seemed to feel better. Monday he went out to the back field to sniff around as normal, he seemed better but not all the way, so he got another dose of Mylanta. Tuesday afternoon he hit me up for some roast beef when I was making a sandwich, and I thought that was a good sign since he hadn’t pestered me for as many snacks as usual for the past week or two. Tuesday on the way out to the field he had massive diarrhea, but he seemed to feel a lot better immediately after that. OK, I thought, maybe there was a blockage causing all the problems and he just eliminated it. He seemed to have a spring in step again after that big poop. He came home and was hungry for dinner, so between the big poop and getting his appetite back we thought things were improving. But late Tuesday night Barb found him lying outside alone in the back yard. For most dogs this would seem normal, but Freebie never sat outside in the yard alone EVER – I mean why would you when you have your own custom built stairs leading up to your own leather chair in front of the widescreen? I went out to check on him, and after a few minutes of calling him he came back into the house. He threw up a lot of yellow stomach bile, we cleaned it up, and he went back to his chair. OK, I thought, maybe puking helped, because he went back to his chair. I woke up at 5:00AM and couldn’t find him in the house – I found him outside lying in the cold wet grass again very unresponsive with a glazed look in his eyes. After 10 minutes of petting him and trying to coax him back into the house, I lifted him to his feet and he walked straight into the house, up the stairs, and right into our bed. I covered him with his blanket, he was moaning a little, he couldn’t get comfortable, his hind legs were twitching, and his breathing was very labored. But being 5:00AM, I would bring him straight into the vet when they opened at 8:00AM. So I called the local vet, but he was doing surgeries until 11:15 when they would fit him in. OK, just a few more hours. A few minutes later Freebie got up to go outside and I followed him. He made it across the house, and outside by 3 feet when his legs got wobbly and he collapsed on his side. He puked more yellow stomach bile while he was lying on his side, but he wouldn’t even move his head out of the puddle. I thought he was going to die right then. I moved him over and cleaned him up. Barb called our house-call vet, and she said to bring him out to her clinic (about a half hour away) and she would see him the second we got there. He got up on his own a few minutes later and walked on his own to the car, but I had to lift him up into the back seat. I sat in the back seat with him while Barb drove like Mario Andretti. Freebie was very weak, but when I opened his window he looked back at me with a goofy smile – he always loved rides in the car.



We got to the vet, she came out to the car, and after only a minute of checking him out, she immediately sent us to a new emergency vet clinic with advanced equipment like ultrasound and even MRI that most vets don’t have. Turns out this new clinic was built right next door to the factory I used to work at – about 100 yards away from the exact spot where I found Freebie 10 years ago (someone dumped him at a Humane Society shelter a few doors down on a day they were closed, he made it over to my office, I came down the stairs to find him sitting their abandoned, so I figured hey free dog, and I took him home, thus the name “Freebie”). By this time he couldn’t get up on his own, so I carried him into the clinic. The vet checked him out and gave him some morphine for his discomfort, and they started doing blood work to check his organ function. Then they did an ultrasound and found a tumor on his heart. The tumor was bleeding into a fluid filled sack around his heart, but this sack is inelastic, so as the tumor bled the sack filled and was compressing his heart. His heart couldn’t expand and contract properly under the fluid pressure so it wasn’t pumping enough blood to his other organs, shutting them down. The vet said that even though they have a state of the art surgical facility they couldn’t surgically remove the tumor. All they could do was put him out and insert a needle catheter guided by ultrasound into the sack surrounding the heart to drain the fluid out of the sack to reduce the pressure on the heart. The problem is that would only help for a matter of days, two weeks at the most, until all of his symptoms happened again, which was a 100% certainty. Meanwhile his other organs would be failing with reduced blood flow. I couldn’t put him through another day like today, and we couldn’t watch him go through another day like today. There was no choice but to put him down, the only question was do it now while he was already comfortable while wasted on the morphine, or do the surgery to drain the fluid, bring him home, wait a few days, and have our normal vet come to the house to put him down. Twice with the cats we had already gone threw the agonizing emotional process of watching the clock waiting for the house-call vet to come to put them down, so we knew we couldn’t handle that again.



So the vet brought Freebie back into a quiet room for us, and we said some long goodbyes to him. Barb went out to the car because she couldn’t face what was coming. I couldn’t face what was coming in a few minutes either, but I also wouldn’t let the last things he saw be some cold surgical room and strangers. I had the vet do it there in the nice quiet room without moving him, and I stayed with my face inches from his, nose to nose, petting him and talking softly to him while the vet gave him a sedative. I could see my own reflection off his brown Tootsie Roll eyes; he was looking into my eyes while I stroked his ears when I saw him fall asleep even with his eyes still open. Then he got the shot to stop his heart. He was so sedated he didn’t even twitch when the needle went into his leg. He went very quietly, very quickly, and peacefully. It’s a very odd set of circumstances that his life with me started and ended at virtually the same exact spot (within a few a hundred feet) – talk about circle of life. I don’t drink that often, but when we made it home I put a big dent into a Crown Royal whiskey bottle.



My constant companion. My neighborhood socialite. My snuggler. My greeter. My goofball. My head of security. With him on constant guard duty we could sleep comfortably with all the windows and doors unlocked and wide open. His unique personality brightened our lives and made the daily activities around the house more interesting. I’ll remember him for the rest of my life every time the barometric pressure changes when I feel the steel bars and screws in my bones ache, and I think of our bicycle accident that will forever tie us together. I never knew you could love a smelly furbag so much. My life will never be the same again without him. The house already seems too quiet. There is an energy missing. Some will say he was just a dog, but to us he was a child we had for 10 and a half years.



I’ve been kicking myself all night about the times I should have gotten off my lazy ass and took him out for another walk or gotten on the floor and wrestled with him one more time. I took his existence for granted. I took his love for granted. It’s only been 24 hours, but now I know I shouldn’t have taken any time for granted.


Carl Verdonck

[rehmwa 2]

I never get city people. It's a pet, not family. Simple.

I grew up with pets, they are a huge part of my life, I love my pets. But they are not people.

Anyway, you are forgetting the bonus of having a dead cat - there are about 200 uses for a dead cat, 'doorstop' doesn't even begin the list really.

At $4000, it's not even a tradeoff of any kind. At $400 (dog) or $40 (cat) it might be.

Put it down, get a replacement kitten. Don't agonize over it or let tired old cliches sway a practical decision about your property and finances.

And unless you have medical reasons to buy a specific breed, why pay $35 for a kitten when you can get them free most times?

Good luck, Doc.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[wmw999 2,587]

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I couldn’t face what was coming in a few minutes either, but I also wouldn’t let the last things he saw be some cold surgical room and strangers. I had the vet do it there in the nice quiet room without moving him, and I stayed with my face inches from his, nose to nose, petting him and talking softly to him while the vet gave him a sedative.

QFT. The last thing your trusting pet should see if at all possible is someone who he trusted with his life and love.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[normiss 893]

I had tears in my eyes reading that...my buddy Carl stands like 6'3" and weighs about 250. Big biker dude...

One of my closest friends in life.

[Sapphire 0]

That made my eyes fill up with tears! Your poor friend - took me right back to when I had to have my poor baby Keenu... well, yanno. Her's wasn't quite so peaceful, though...

Good vibes sent to your friend and his family!

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" ~ Helen Keller

[tigra 0]

sigh.......... he posed a "what if?" question when he had no idea what was even wrong with the cat. He pulled that $4,000.00 number out of his butt and never said that he didn't have the money or that spending that kind of money would have a serious impact on his finances.

I don't think anyone should let their children go hungry or miss a mortgage payment in favor of vet bills. But, when you decide to have a pet, you need to realize that you are making a long term commitment to that animal and that caring for a dog or cat can be very expensive. If the OP can't afford to take care of this cat, he shouldn't get another kitten or any other pet. The first year you have a kitten can easily cost $1,000.00 between the initial vet visits, vaccines and getting him or her fixed. That's for a healthy animal whether you get it for free from a neighbor, adopt it from a shelter or buy it from a pet store or breeder.

[Sapphire 0]

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I never get city people. It's a pet, not family. Simple.

I grew up with pets, they are a huge part of my life, I love my pets. But they are not people.

You're exactly right! People aren't as loyal!

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" ~ Helen Keller

[Belgian_Draft 0]

First you need to find out what is wrong with cat. Could be something simple.
If cat needs expensive treatment you need to balance cost vs. quality of life vs. life remaining in cat. No sense spending $2000 to keep kitty alive but miserable for 6 more months.
Talk to vet about alternatives. My parents once had a large cat who started limping. Seems the upper end of his femur had started to deteriate. They opted for an experimental (at that time) treatment of removing just the bad part of the bone. Cat healed up fine and after a couple months had no limp or anything. Of course he didn't have a hip joint on his left side either. Lived another 8-10 years and surgery was only a couple hundred bucks.

HAMMER:
Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a
kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts adjacent the
object we are trying to hit.

[tigra 0]

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I had tears in my eyes reading that...my buddy Carl stands like 6'3" and weighs about 250. Big biker dude...

One of my closest friends in life.

I had tears in my eyes reading that myself. I've been there more than once and it is never easy letting go and saying goodby, even when you know you are doing the right thing.

[BIGUN 1,483]

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I find it interesting that this question was proposed by a Doctor.

Why? Doctors aren't entitled to ethical delimmas?

I wasn't picking a fight... I said it was "interesting."
A doctor facing the ethical dilemma of; finances, life, death, family, etc.

Kinda like to know what you/family decide,
How you came to that decision.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.