Posted on 06/28/2006 9:00:54 PM PDT by Huntress
Dear FReeper animal lovers:
I have a dilemma regarding my cat and could use some advice. I have had Norman the cat for six years and he is a very beloved pet and companion. He got sick this morning, and my vet says he must have surgery or he will die. Here is the problem: the vet quoted me a price of $1800 (yes, $1800) for Norman's treatment; this includes what he has already done in an attempt to cure the cat without surgery, the surgery itself, and care after the surgery. $1800 is a tremendous amount of money but still within the bounds of what I can afford (barely). If I pay for the surgery, it is going to hurt financially. If I have the vet put Norman down, I think I will feel guilty about it forever.
My parents and many of my friends think I'm out of my mind for even considering spending this much money on a cat. What would you do if you were me?
Don't over-medicate, get blood work done for him on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for him to see if his internal organs are working. Be on the look-out to see if his appetite is ok.
Prayers for his recovery.
"In any case, I have decided that it is worth it. I can always earn more money, but Norman and his companionship are unique."
Understood. No one can tell you what's in your heart. Clearly Norman needed to be given another chance and that's what you've given him. He's a very lucky boy to have such a devoted owner.
I've owned a series of purebred male Siamese over the last several decades. As you've likely been told, diet is key. Feed the dear boy whatever the vet recommends. Kidney and/or urinary track protective foods are often pricey but they've served the cats well in the long run.
All the best to you and Norman! You can tell him Elliott, Taylor and Rhys send their best.
You some fine hairballs. They look like littermates??
I don't know how to put this, but.....is he a "special" cat? What I mean is that I've had several cats throughout my life, and most of them were "run of the mill" cats with not necessarily special or unique personalities. But one or two have been very unique and seemed more "distinctive".
My brother and his wife have had as many as 5 cats at once (they have a big farm-type place), and I remember just one of them actually having a "personality". On that cat, I'd have spent the $1,800. The other 4? Not really.
I went through the horrors of thread consumption with one a few years ago. Wilbur was in obvious distress, so I took him to an emergency weekend clinic.
They made a diagnosis, but they were wrong. They missed the thread wrapped around his tongue, which was found by his usual vet Monday morning.
Wilbur has now survived de-threading surgery AND de-plugging surgery, for many years. He is a dear, and drools messily when especially content. He likes to sleep draped across me, and enjoys beating up on his much larger brother Orville. He fetches furry faux mice.
I'm so glad he's recovering! I'll keep you both in my prayers. And please keep us updated on his progress.
Some dry food may cause problems; not sure. But there are special foods you can buy to feed a cat with urinary problems. I think they have lower magnesium or low ash.
If you decide to go ahead and get the medical help for your cat, you might look into a special diet to avoid another costly episode.
I guess it's still controversial regarding when to spay or neuter a cat. Spaying or neutering very young may (or may not) have an effect on the maturity of the genitourinary tract, which may have an effect on what (if any) problems the cat has as an adult.
I decided to get away from supermarket foods (and also away from most pet supermarket foods). I recently started my three cats on Innova Evo, which is a dry food that is supposedly compatible with a raw food diet, and is also low-carb and no-grain. It'll be a while before I see much in the way of results, I guess, but so far, the cats seem to really go for the stuff, and two of them seem to have softer fur. One of them had some dandruff, and it's already starting to ease off.
A few years ago I had to have a cat put to sleep who was only about 9-1/2 years old. I think he had cancer (losing weight, stinky breath, weakness), and I didn't have the money to take him to a vet for costly treatment. When that cat was young, I had times when all I could afford to feed him was cheap stuff supplemented by leftover meat from my table.
I'm hoping that by feeding my current cats better food, I will be able to extend their healthful lives and stave off the inevitable for a few more years.
If I were in your shoes; if the vet were willing to take payments on the medical procedures; and if the vet were pretty sure that the treatment would actually cure the problem and allow your cat to have a good number of healthy years left; I would then go ahead and get the medical work done on the cat. And I hope that getting your cat healthy doesn't mean you have to eat peanut butter sandwiches for six months.
I recently adopted a one-year-old, former feral cat. She turned out to have a case of diarrhea, which turned out to be an intestinal infection. To cure it, I spent a couple of hundred dollars on vet visits, tests, and antibiotics.
She wasn't happy about taking a course of a heavy-duty antibiotic/antifungal, and I wish she'd been healthier to begin with, but the upshot is that she's now in good health, has put on some weight, and has a good appetite now.
I wish you and your cat the best. I hope both of you come out of this ordeal in good spirits!
>Some dry food may cause problems; not sure. But there are special foods you can buy to feed a cat with urinary problems. I think they have lower magnesium or low ash.<
I lost a cat to urethral blockage in 1974, and since then have read all kinds of theories about the cause of the problem. The acronyms don't even stay the same, reflecting the way no one really understands the condition completely.
Regarding dry food...Innova EVO contains an astonishing 6 % calories from carbohydrates, which appears to be unique among dry foods. Look under 'Natura':
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/dryfood.html
which would appear to make it comparable to many of the better canned choices:
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/canfood.html
Note that not all canned foods are good choices in terms of calories from carbhydrates--you must do your homework. Picking up any old can won't do these job, but at least there is an exception to the dry food problem [but what about water consumption?].
I have a little girl kitty that looks a lot like your boy. I've got a very soft spot in my heart for black kitties now. My baby and I are coping with renal failure. I'm giving her sub-cutaneous fluids at home three times a week. Seems like a lot of trouble, but after being very sedate she is playing like a kitten again. I will keep her going as long as I can and as long as she is not is pain. She will be 5 wext week, so it's not an "old age" issue.
I'm so glad to hear he's home and doing better! Give him a big hug and a little nose swat from the Ferocious Feline Bebop Trio.
My kitty is in the early stages of renal failure. She has to be very careful not to get too much protein. The vet gave me both dry and wet KD foods. My kitty loves the dry and tolerates the wet (though if she had her way it would be Fancy Feast 24/7). I've got to head over to do the reading, but do you know if the "no dry" is for cats with kidney disease as well?
Littermates? No, not even related.
Thanks! I've just completed the first week of sub-cues at home. You are right--it is easier than giving her a pill. I gave her a spoon with a little Fancy Feast on it and while she is licking that I can give her the fluids. You are right--the fluids make all the difference!
Thanks to the postings on this thread, I am having more and more qualms about feeding cats dry foods... astonishingly, when I had to take my youngest cat in for blood-tinged diarrhea, one of the techs told me to feed my cats dry food exclusively. She was railing against canned foods as "poison" and "bad for their teeth."
I've long been skeptical of a lot of orthodox medicine for humans; now I'm getting that way about veterinary medicine. And to think that as a kid I once wanted to be a veterinarian. Nowadays, I just type up medical reports for a living.
I saw the website which sells the frozen bones-and-raw-food diet; I could buy from them, but it would probably pay me to eventually buy a grinder and make my own food for my critters.
I live in California, where the cost of living is high, but I can usually buy California-raised chickens on sale for as low as 57 cents per pound. These locally-grown chickens (Foster Farms) are not organic, but are allegedly raised without hormones and antibiotics. For sure they look and taste better than the ones which have traveled thousands of miles to get to our markets.
For now the Innova Evo seems to be acceptable to my darlings. One of my cats, the longest-haired of the three, does hock up hairballs every once in a while, so a raw food diet would probably help her in this regard as well.
I've read a little bit about holistic vet medicine... I have read that people who follow the BARF diet and get holistic medicine for their pets, routinely have their cats live to something like 24 years without major problems.
I figure that a better critter diet will pay off in the long run, and will actually be cheaper than big vet bills. I can't afford thousands of dollars for vet bills, but I could eventually cough up the money for a food grinder and the supplements.
Thank you and all the others who have posted stuff regarding feline diet and diabetes. I kind of figured that the high level of carbohydrates in most commercial pet food was the culprit, but I've definitely learned something on this thread.
>My kitty is in the early stages of renal failure. She has to be very careful not to get too much protein. The vet gave me both dry and wet KD foods. My kitty loves the dry and tolerates the wet (though if she had her way it would be Fancy Feast 24/7). I've got to head over to do the reading, but do you know if the "no dry" is for cats with kidney disease as well?<
Relatively high carbohydrates are a bad idea for all cats, but with the need for avoiding lots of protein, I would think you are looking for a food relatively loaded with fats. We have been taught to think fats are always bad, but for a sick cat, a relatively high fat food should be a tasty one and that might help them to keep eating.
Cats tend to stop eating when they are really sick. You are going to have to make sure kitty drinks enough, too--another reason to avoid dry food, since a dehydrated cat is a bad thing, too.
Run this all past your vet, but this is how I would reason it out. Reasearch online. The FDMB people are very nice--I doubt anyone would get crazy if you asked a question unrelated to diabetes, since the people there have a lot of experience dealing with sick cats.
One of the rescue people in my area, who worked as a vet tech before having her first kid, got this horrified look on her face when I mentioned a raw-food diet.
>One of the rescue people in my area, who worked as a vet tech before having her first kid, got this horrified look on her face when I mentioned a raw-food diet.<
I have no idea what the training of vet techs looks like, but I do know that it used to be possible get a DVM degree without ever being exposed to formal nutrition training. (MD, too, by the way.). That has changed, but some of these people probably have not kept up. My cousin the pathologist says there are guys he hatched out of med school with who haven't cracked a book since.
I'd be leery of raw food because of the potential for parasites. Also, kitty needs taurine, which may or may not be present in the raw source.
When I was looking into the possibility of a DVM for myself some years ago, all the schools I checked out did have at least one animal nutrition course listed as a prerequisite. But gawd knows what they actually taught in terms of what to feed cats.
(MD, too, by the way.). That has changed, but some of these people probably have not kept up. My cousin the pathologist says there are guys he hatched out of med school with who haven't cracked a book since.
Judging by some of the faddish, fat-phobic, high-grain crap being passed off as a "heart-healthy" diet by the AMA, AHA, and other alphabet-soup agencies, not to mention the FDA's "food pyramid," I would be very leery of most "nutrition information" out there that comes from "professionals." (Note to self: Oh, please, don't get started on a rant!)
I'd be leery of raw food because of the potential for parasites.
The Weston Price folks state that if you freeze raw meat for 14 days, it kills parasites. Still, lightly cooked meat would be better than most commercial canned or dry pet food.
Also, kitty needs taurine, which may or may not be present in the raw source.
According to the BARF recipe on one of the websites mentioned in this thread, taurine is easily enough added, either in the form of an animo acid/vitamin supplement or (as the recipe states) chicken hearts.
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