[img]958|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img]Dateline Boston — My cat Shelby is fifteen years old, and the end is near. How do I know? I’m going to decide when she will be put to sleep.
I adopted Shelby when she was seven years old. Soon afterwards, at her first vet checkup with me, I found out she had a heart murmur. She was prescribed meds twice a day and ultrasounds every six months. Awhile after that, she was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It’s as icky as it sounds. She had diarrhea every day (we prefer the term “Yucky Tummy”) for months while I tried protein after protein to see what she could digest. She was on chicken, fish and venison, before the miracle protein was discovered: rabbit! Rabbit got rid of her Yucky Tummy, and Shelby and Mommy were very happy for a long time.
About two years ago, Shelby started losing weight. She lost a pound in a couple of months, which is a lot for a cat. The blood tests didn’t show anything significant, so I chalked it up to old age. Then we were really busy preparing for our big move into a new apartment. Shelby went into foster care with a sweet grandmother for a few months. Then we moved. By the time she went for a vet visit again, a year had passed. She visited the vet last month.
Well, she’s lost more weight. Seven years ago she was a chubby, yet stocky, cat, tipping the scale at twelve pounds. Now she’s about seven and a half. She’s bony. You can feel her spine and hip bone when you pet her.
Recently, she started having Yucky Tummy again. The blood results came back again with nothing significant, maybe something in her liver. She was prescribed meds to see if she had a liver infection. This bumped up her pills from three a day to seven a day. I’m not exaggerating. Can you imagine shoving a pill down a cat’s throat seven times a day? For three weeks? She tolerated it for about a week, and then she clamped her mouth shut and literally put her paw in front of her mouth when I’d try to open it. I decided not to fight with her, and, in addition to not subjecting her to ultrasounds anymore, have stopped giving her pills. She is nearing the end of her life, and I want her to go out with at least a little dignity.
Ten Times in Seven Days
When her Yucky Tummy was three times a week and she had had three accidents on rugs, I called the vet and asked about quality of life. I wondered if I should put her down. When? When she was having YT four times a week? Five? Seven? Twice a day? I told her I didn’t want to wait until she couldn’t move or was so miserable she just slept all the time. The vet, coincidentally, also had a cat with IBD, and she said that she waited too long to put her cat to sleep. I told her I would try one last protein change, and after that I would just let her go and decide when the time was right. We tried duck/turkey, and that was a disaster. Back to the rabbit.
Shelby has had YT ten times in the past seven days. Her quality of life is diminishing. If I didn’t do anything, it would probably take another couple of months before she became really miserable. I don’t want her to be miserable, but how can I be sure I’m doing the right thing? Who am I to say when the right time is? The real thing that’s keeping me back is that when she’s not having Yucky Tummy, you’d never know she was having all of this trouble on her insides. She talks to us, she wakes us up in the morning, she purrs, she eats, she does all the things she’s always done. She looks old, sure, but she looks good. Sort of. When I look at old pictures of her, I can see that her fur has lost its luster. She’s skinny, and she doesn’t exactly smell like a kitten, if you know what I mean.
I’m going to put her down. All my friends say it’s okay. The lady who answered the phone at the vet’s office said it was okay. The vet said it’s okay. My S.O. says it’s okay. I’m going to make the appointment. Can you imagine, an appointment to put your cat to sleep? It’s not an emergency. It comes down to quality of life. I know my quality of life will diminish when she’s not here.
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at snobbyblog@gmail.com
