r/RenalCats

I hope this is allowed and please amend if needed but I wanted to share the passing of Marmalade with the r/cats community. I really liked watching their content and when Cole passed away it was a really sad day.

After your cat was diagnosed with stage 4, did you continue to stay up to date with vaccines?

Edit: Thank you to all that have responded. It gave me peace in knowing that my vet is not under-treating and comfort in knowing that keeping my boy unvaccinated is in his best interest. Thanks again.

Here is my cats symptom timeline in a nutshell. She's 14 and named Margot.

S couple years ago I started noticing her vision was declining and her eyes were getting cloudy. I chalked this up to old age, not realizing how this can be serious in a cat (although I did mention it at vet appointments and they always said nothing was wrong).

Last Halloween, she threw up about 20 times in one day, so I took her to the ER and they diagnosed her with pancreatitis. They gave her some fluids and pain meds and sent her home. I went back two days later after some more vomiting and they repeated the process.

Maybe a month later I took her to an eye specialist who doagnosed her with massively high BP (which they never checked at the ER). Total vision loss in right eye with full retinal detachment, partial retinal detachment in left eye, and some hemorrhages. They put her on daily amlodipine. She has had a few checkups since then. No vision improvement, but hemorrhages are gone and retinas has reattached.

The problem now is she has lost 3 pounds this year and is now incredibly skinny. She just doesn't want to eat. I've done bloodwork at my normal vet that is normal other than showing early kidney disease. We tried mirtazapine and cerenia without luck. She won't let me give her elura.

I finally got so freaked out that I took her to an internist at the ER. She said she has stage 2 kidney disease but hasn't lost much muscle mass yet (which is hard for me to believe because she has gotten so bony). She put her on 50mg of fluids 3x per week and said this would potentially flush out some toxins and increase her appetite. That was about two weeks ago and it has not helped her appetite at all yet.

She has another vet checkup soon which the internist ordered to recheck some blood work. I am just so worried and don't know what to do. Her whole life she has only ever wanted hard food (won't touch wet) and now literally all she will eat are her Friskies Beachside Crunch treats. This has always been a daily treat for her and she still eats these voraciously a few times a day.

I have tried about four types of hard food, including her prescription renal food, and she won't touch any of it.

Hey folks. Just got back from taking my cat to the ICU and an afternoon of soul-searching alone in the park.

I got back from a trip out of town the other day, and she stayed with my mother. She wasn't eating much, and that had me worried and resolved to get her back to the vet ASAP. We snuggled on the couch all day yesterday. And then I woke up to her seizing this morning.

My last post here was in the end of June, when I asked about starting on amlodipine. After a series of very frustrating and conflicting vet visits on longer-term prognosis (one vet saying things were massively improved after a UTI, another saying things were looking bad, but also not), I went ahead with it knowing I'd be switching practices at some time. Meanwhile, the current vet was near impossible to schedule anything with.

She was doing great all summer. She was due for a biannual while I was gone, but put that off until I got back—in fact, I was dialing their number when she started seizing. (And of course, found out they recently ended weekend hours).

I just feel immensely guilty I didn't keep a better eye on this the last few months. I feel guilty I didn't get on the ball switching vets sooner. I feel guilty that, when I got news she wasn't eating much last week, not urging my mother to take her in.

On the other hand, it frustrates me to no end that our vet gave me absolutely long-term game plan or even indications to watch out for: I've never had a cat before, let alone one for 15 years, and I have no idea where the line of normal aging and medically concerning behaviors is. Especially considering she's been the picture of health until this year.

The doctor today was very...frank. It isn't looking good. Dehydration, electrolytes crashed, kidney values off the charts. Options were a 48-hour hold pushing fluids and nutrients, at a cost that made my heart skip, or call it a day.

Honestly, I wasn't ready to make that decision, and I was honest about that—the money isn't the concern, but I couldn't live with myself unless I knew I exhausted all options, but of course not ones that would prolong suffering just or my indecisions sake.

I asked what could have caused this and what I could have done. Not eating much was the first sign, the doc said, but sometimes kidney cats just crash. Or it could just be a bad UTI throwing things out of whack.

That was the glimmer of hope I needed. She had one back in January, and once we got through that, her kidney values were better than the prior month's baseline.

I asked if cost were no object, what she would do for their own pet—100% absolutely worth a shot, if it's not going to bankrupt you. Fortunately not the case for me. It hurts knowing how many aren't fortunate for that decision. On the other hand, my partner having worked in the vet field, I've heard too many stories of people throwing a lot of money at an unsalvageable prognosis.

I'm not putting too much faith in it. I know the chances are slim, and if she pulls through, it's not buying a lot of time. My partner's cat went through the same, and it got her a year with him. That defied a lot of odds. I know I'm delaying the inevitable here, but hell, even just a week where I can make sure she's comfortable and passes peacefully is worth all the money in the world to me.

I kinda made my peace with all this in the last 10 hours. It'll hurt if she doesn't make it through the night, but I know I tried.

I'm just thankful I've had her make it through the year fine. It's been a really rough one, with both my parents battling cancer. I'm glad my mother got to take care of her one last time. I'm glad she waited for me to come back so we could snuggle one more day.

And thanks to everyone being here. I know a lot of you have gone through this.

edit: the cat tax

https://preview.redd.it/owwvforu8cth1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa892ff0d38c213087e09b22e6e7aab3495b0837

She is refusing food and her meds. I could give her some fluids but she hates it. We have the vet coming tomorrow to euthanize her but she’s so miserable right now. I want to make her last few hours comfortable. But she is just curled up on her heated pad. She staggers when she walks.

It is devastating.