On point as usual, The Onion had an article in January called “Cat Refuses to Die” that was both amusing and wince-worthy in its familiarity. I emailed it to my mom and suggested a blog post recounting our own history of the more ridiculous medical shit we’ve been through with our animals, saying that I thought it would elicit comments.
She wrote back, “Yeah, the comments this will get are that we are crazy people.”
Certainly some people would find the amount of time, money, and energy invested in our pets’ care to be shocking. Tallying it up is sobering, especially as we’ve only had standard house pets – think about people with horses or exotic animals, who probably spend a fortune in care and maintenance. With that perspective, our kitty hospice and doggie rehab shouldn’t seem so absurd…
In a house of Responsible Pet-Ownership, we, like many other people, often found our good intentions stretched to extraordinary measures, and often with extreme grossness and expense.
There was our much-beloved Yonkers and the Blood Parasite in the late ‘80s that cost over $2500 to treat (about $4600, according to an inflation calculator). He spent two weeks in the feline ICU, and we made more than one “final visit.” Miraculously, Yonkers was eventually discharged with a feeding tube punched through the back of his neck to his esophagus; for feeding, my mother would blenderize cat food, uncork him, and inject it into his neck with a syringe. He made a full recovery and went on to eviscerate many more lizards, in his day.
Then there was Wallace, who developed hyperthyroidism when he was six. A veterinary college 100 miles away was researching the treatment of hyperthyroidism with irradiation, so Wallace spent a month getting blasted. When he came home, his urine and feces had to be specially handled and disposed of because they were still slightly radioactive. He also retained some heart damage that was treated as a further part of the research project. Mom reports that, apparently, “most hyperthyroid cats back then only lived a few years beyond their treatment. (Wallace) died when he was 19 or 20, the longest lived cat in the study. The A&M researchers followed him through our vet until his (Wallace’s) death.”
Wallace isn’t our only pet to contribute to the advancement of medical science. Arlo the Dog also went to A&M for prostate cancer treatment (results: inconclusive).
Opal and Tigerlily both had renal failure and for ages, there was an IV pole and fluids bag in my childhood bedroom, where my poor mother would administer a subcutaneous solution drip. Truly, it was Kitty General Hospital. In Tigerlily’s case, she was a feral neighborhood cat who hid under our house to die until my mom (bellycrawling like a soldier) dramatically rescued her during a howling storm and we rushed her bag-o’-bones to the ER. Tigerlily underwent a complete personality 180, transforming from certified wild thing to cuddly lapcat within days, and lived another couple of years.
YoYo, our Halloween street urchin kitten, had worms and fleas and ants all over her (even her eyes, ick) when we scooped her out of a gutter. The ER vet thought we were insane for trying to treat her, but treat her we did, and at considerable expense, and she’s still with us 13 years later, happy and dim as a clam. This is a cat who purrs so loudly and constantly that the vets can never listen to her heart with a stethoscope.
More recently memorable, Pete the Dog and everyone’s favorite member of the family, had a collapsed lung and received a $6000+ thoracotomy (to our horror). Even worse, he had to wear a doggie tee-shirt for a while in recovery, and people kept stopping my mom on their walks to tell her how cute he looked.
“People think I am the type of woman who dresses up her dog for the park,” she told me, very tight-lipped. Unacceptable. And really funny, to me, anyway.
That’s not even counting the dozens and dozens of cases of kennel cough, vomiting, injuries, check-ups, and various scheduled surgeries over the years, and when you have multiple cats who have lived anywhere from the ages of 16 to 22, it really adds up. The IV drips, the pills, the flea treatments, the neuterings and spayings – not to mention the regularity of shots, food, litter, treats, grooming, and daycare – it wouldn’t be far off to speculate we’ve spent $xxxxxx on animal care in the last 30 years.
There’s even been psychological treatment for cat Zippy the Pinhead, who pulled out his own fur in fits of anxiety and required a regular dosing of Zoloft, or Pete’s panicky spells. Opal was a Calico who probably should have been on anti-psychotics on account of her murderous streak – she kept pushing our deaf-and-dumb cat Willow off the balcony. Willow lived to 22 and was finally euthanized after her back-legs stopped functioning and no one could take the pathos any longer. I guarantee she would have ticked along for another couple of years on her own if we were willing to spoon-feed her Tuna Feast and carry her from her towel to the litterbox several times a day. Actually, we were willing, but it was clearly time to let go.
We treat our pets well, because, as Mom says, it’s a responsibility as well as a pleasure. While it’s a bit mind-boggling to look at it collectively, it’s part of the choice that comes with adopting an animal. It is perhaps a very Western mindset and a product of privilege, but I also think it’s significant, and I really respect my parents for their devotion to our pets, within our means (I wouldn’t expect that anyone faced with the prospect of paying their rent or feeding their children or going to school versus shelling out $1500 for a vet bill would make the same choices). It probably helps that I am an only child, and our animals are very much a part of our family.
So, yeah, people do crazy things for love of their pets. Feel free to share some of your own extraordinary measures.
March 3, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Wow, you have really gone above and beyond for your pets. I did not even know feeding tubes and IV bags were options in the pet world.
My family has had quite a few pets, and we’ve done well by them, but we’ve also been lucky and none of them have had major injuries or health issues. We’ve had 4 bunnies over the years (Smokey, Peter, Patches, and Chip) that died (we kept them like cats, roaming around the house) mostly due to digestive issues. There was a cat and dog before I can remember – I think the cat ran away or was hit by a car, not sure about the dog. Rusty the cat lived to be very old and died in her sleep. Missy the dog was eventually put down – her arthritis was so bad that she was in pain. Right now there’s Serendipity (aka Dippy, the stray cat I brought home in 9th grade), Lucy (the cat we took in from a family friend) and Katie (the black lab from the shelter) and they’re all going strong. And one of my brothers has a cat, and I have one. Her name is Schrodinger. Right now she’s asleep in a box.
The biggest non-death incident I remember involved the house rabbit Chip. He got bit by a brown recluse spider. By some miracle, it was on his ear, and the poison was only carried up. The top half of the ear shriveled up and had to be removed, but the rest of him was fine. He became our Pirate Bunny with his rugged one and a half ears.
There was also a stray cat, a big orange fluffy thing (we may have called him Fluffy, I can’t remember) that we tended to for a bit. Poor thing had been abandoned when its people moved out, and it kept on hanging around the house. My mom and I saw it when we were out walking. I can’t remember if we brought it home or if he ended up on our porch or what. But somehow he came into our care, and we fed him and took him to the vet. Poor guy ended up needing to get a lion-style haircut so that his wounds could be tended to, the indignity! He hung around for a while, sometimes going away for days at a time, and then he stopped coming back.
March 7, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Aw, everyone has animal stories. My mom got bitten by a brown recluse on her hand (fortunately in the webbed bit between her thumb and forefinger) and lost the flesh (they had to cut it out). That is no joke!
Kudos to you and your family for your animal-loving. :)
(See, Mom? We’re not the only crazies).
March 6, 2010 at 10:16 am
Oh TF, I luv you and your family!! We’ve been through a diabetic cat that was on insulin injections for years. We even tried acupuncture at the end, I think it would have helped if started earlier.
I also used the full services (hearse, casket, graveside services, and headstone) of the local funeral home to bury a much beloved dog in our family plot at the cemetary.
We always viewed the cost as irrelevant, because they were part of our family.
March 7, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Animal burial is a route we haven’t gone down (cremated, usually, and we do have our last family dog’s ashes in a box), but that makes total sense to me.
My mom deserves the credit for all this. I mean, my dad and I are devoted, but she’s the one who does all the labor-intensive, hard stuff – including making the decision to put that dog to sleep while my dad was taking me to college sophomore year (rapidly spreading cancer), because she’s compassionate to our animals and we’re more likely to try to keep them around past their due date for selfish reasons.
And yeah, it is a part of the family.
March 10, 2010 at 2:11 am
This makes me feel WAY better about the $ my husband and I have spent on our critter pals.
Sadly, our most recent outlay was unsuccessful. We just lost our 9-year-old ferret, Harriet, to kidney and liver failure. This was after a nearly week-long stay in the ICU and then a short return home. It was worth the price of a semi-decent used car for her to recover enough to spend her last few days at home with her sister, and for us to be able to help her to the Bridge peacefully.
Being ferret parents is costly: in addition to the flooring and furniture they destroy, ferrets are also prone to adrenal disease and tumors. Our most expensive fuzzy, Harley, had both. All our ferrets developed ECE (a nasty virus) and he didn’t recover properly. The vet discovered he had an adrenal tumor and we opted for surgery. While he had Harley opened up, the vet discovered multiple other tumors and removed them all. He gave Harley a year at the most optimistic. Harley lived 6 months past that, after developing adrenal disease in the other gland and being put on Lupron injections (also not cheap).
Harley was our only adrenal ferret, but we had several develop insulinoma (also pretty common for them). For one of them, Doe, we decided to try the surgical option of a partial pancreatectomy. It helped for a bit, but then she became diabetic and passed away while the hospital was trying to get her on an insulin regimen. If we ever deal with insulinoma again, we’re sticking with ‘roids.
Our most expensive pet overall is probably our cat, Garlic Junior – she’s diabetic, which is pricey enough. She has also had to have dental surgery to remove dead teeth – her upper canines, the result of which being she makes *hilarious* faces when she opens her mouth because she now has an under-bite. And (most painfully costly) she had to have her right ear canal removed because she had a benign but very invasive growth that kept coming back in her ear, and was also threatening to grow through the roof of her mouth.
The most unexpected expense was for our most recent kitty addition, Toaster. She was hiding under our neighbors’ shed for a couple days and I kept seeing her from my kitchen window. I asked if she was theirs and she wasn’t, so I went and checked her out. She was super-sweet, and had a giant bite wound on her back leg. I took her to the vet to get it treated, and although she was already spayed (and therefore presumably vaccinated), because she was a stray and suffering a bite injury she had to be quarantined for rabies. For six months. In a special quarantine cage that I was given 10 days (by DHSS) to acquire. And since no one sells them, I had to find a dude on craigslist to build it for her. And then we had to rearrange the house, because the inspection requirements include that Animal Control has to be able to see the animal even if we aren’t home, and since we live in a townhouse the only option was the finished side of our basement, which we had been using as our bedroom. The only other option would have been to surrender her to be put down, and that was NOT an option for my hubby or me. The reward has been the sweetest, goofiest cat I’ve ever known. But the cost, plus 6 months of potential unannounced government inspections hanging over our heads was *not* fun.
We also see our furry (and feathery and scaly) babies as family, and as long as we have the funds, they will get the best care available. There is a lot I could – and would – give up to ensure that their wellbeing and quality of life are all that they can be, and that we have the means to take extraordinary measures when they’re called for.
March 14, 2010 at 3:34 pm
You win for the custom-built quarantine cage and involving the government. THAT is dedication!
March 15, 2010 at 8:19 pm
I’m kind of in love with y’all, TF. Nothing that you described even struck me as the least bit crazy (although, that might mean that I, too, am crazy).
The first cat I ever adopted on my own was an adorably shy black kitty I named Osiris. He blossomed into quite a sweet little character (and the best cuddler EVER), and quickly became beyond precious to me, so when he suddenly developed a mass in his neck at the age of 12, money was no object. Tests and a biopsy (I skipped a family trip out of town for Thanksgiving to be home with him post-op) confirmed it was cancer, and my devastation was matched only by my desire for a cure.
So we started chemotherapy. And injections at home when his iron(?) nosedived. And feeding him a liquid diet multiple times a day with special food via a syringe when he stopped eating. And sleeping on the couch with him when he became too weak to get up on the bed. That lasted about 5 or six months.
The financial cost was, ultimately, probably at least a couple thousand dollars, but that was nothing compared to the emotional cost of watching Osiris get sicker and sicker despite our best efforts. The vet said he hung on longer than expected, but if I had it to do over again I wouldn’t. Not because of the money, but because the quality of our “extra” time together wasn’t great due to the chemo. He died (crying) in my arms, before I could get him to the vet to be euthanized, and I’ll never forgive myself for letting it go that far.
That’s why, when Osiris’ “brother” Frisky became ill barely 15 months later, and the tests indicated he had a cancerous tumor on his liver, we didn’t do surgery or treat the cancer. Instead I chose to euthanize him when it became clear that the quality of his life was diminished beyond what I thought was acceptable. Sadly, it was only a matter of days between discovery of the tumor and the day it became clear that Frisky was seriously ill and suffering. He died in my arms, too, but very peacefully.
I did the same thing for the princess, Siva, when it was clear she was suffering from organ failure about 16 months after Frisky died.
So far my current 3 felines are super healthy (knock wood!), and I will do anything in my power (and within my financial means) to keep them healthy and with me for a very long time with a high quality of life. Like your mom said, that’s a responsibility I took on and a commitment I made to them when I adopted them. And they bring so much joy to my life that I don’t see it as a burden whatsoever.