Lost about potentially euthanizing my cat
I have two cats, both purebred Maine Coons. The oldest, Aki, just turned 7. She was likely the runt of the litter and has had health problems her entire life, from fur that mats easily to an umbilical hernia I had repaired about a year into owning her. She has been suffering from some form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease for several years now, with diareah off and on. I switched both my cats to a special hydrolyzed food, and numerous bouts of different medicatiobs through two different vets. The most recent vet she is seeing, an internal medicine specialist, has had her on steroid pills since the beginningof March(prednisolone 5mg pills, up to 1 and a half daily, but currently at 1/2 a pill daily) and then additional chlorambucil for a month. In that time, while her diareah has mostly gone away(she was nearly daily, now only once a week or so), her weight has dramatically decreased. She was always underweight but she's nothing but skin and protruding bones. The last weight I have for her is 3.46kg but that was two weeks ago and I'm sure it's worse now. At the last visit the internal medicine vet said I should consider euthanizing her. In the meanwhile she gave her a steroid injection to see if that would be absorbed better. A technician also gave me some different food to try.
In my haste to get any weight at all back on her, I think I let her eat too much of the new food right away, because she became very lethargic to the point I thought she was dying right there. She threw up the entire contents of her stomach and was somewhat better. That was two nights ago.
She feels like she is straddling the line of the point of no return. She flips between laying on her paws in what I know is a "I'm uncomfortable" pose and doesn't want to be picked up, and then will play with toys, headbutt me aggressively for pets, and lay next to me purring. I have been trying to gauge her level of comfort on four behaviors she normally does: drinking water from the bathroom faucet(when she was less ill she would flat out demand to do this all the time), licking my hand(something she would do endlessly), purring(all I had to do was look at her and she would purr for hours), and if she mrrs at me. She keeps running the gambit of not doing any of these behaviors to doing all of them to doing some combination. For example, she has been laying in bed with me the last several hours, purring, headbutting me, and reaching out to me to pet her.
I don't know what to do. She has been somewhat eating food, both her old food and the new food, and will devour treats and things like churu. She isn't imobile, but she is slower than she used to be. I am afraid to try to take her anywhere because I don't want her last moments to be afraid in an unfamiliar room. Worse, we are in the 4th of July holuday, and my local vet will be closed tomorrow, so if I do need to do something fast to alleviate her suffering I may not be able to get someone to come to my house.
She means the world to me. I have never known an animal this attached to me. She has had a love for me that is boarderline obsessive. Like I said previously, all I have to do is LOOK at her and she will purr for hours. I don't want her to suffer, but I don't want to lose her, especially if she might somehow recover. I don't know if I'm deluding myself. I just don't know what to do. She is my everything. I don't think I'll ever have a pet like her again.
What should I do? She has bloodwork that won't be ready till Saturday. I don't want to make her suffer, but I don't know if it's too late to save her. I just don't know what to do.