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$10,000 Cat.

$10,000 Cat.

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After we had our cat, Whiskers, put to sleep, my wife and I had time to reflect upon our decisions. It was not pretty. We totaled up out costs and they amounted, on paper, to be $9,931.56 and we ended up with a dead cat.

  • Critical Care unit charges: $6,276.56. Housing the cat, x-rays, medications, evaluations, etc..
  • Surgery charges: $3,655.00

Also the time involved was significant. I had to feed, give medications and a shot every four hours a day.

Medications, syringes, preperation materials.

Whiskers would have accidents from time to time and I had to clean up those. We are still suffering from cat urine smell in our down stairs bathroom. I actually decided to skip the 2 am slot by working around the schedule of mediations and just did not give the cat any food for that slot of time. The feeding could take a half hour or more and at five feedings this amounted to using up two to three hours a day for a cat. The reason for this long feeding schedule is I had to mix the medications up. Pills had to be ground and blended with water and put into small syringes.

Using pill container to grind up pills to powder.

I had to blend the food with water in a blender so I could get the food into large syringes.

This shot shows one of the plates full of medications and food ready to give to Whiskers a number of times a day.

Previously blended food came from the refrigerator and thus had to be heated in the microwave. I had to move the cat into the feeding space. When I sat down beside the cat, I draped towels around me as the PEG tube some times would explode (it had two ports). I had to pull out stomach contents from the cat to see how much he had left in the stomach using the PEG tube. Pushing the food into the PEG tube could take 10 minutes or more. A few times I had to take a shower and clean a room up after the PEG tube exploded. Not calculated in the total cost was the significant drive time to and from the Critical Care unit, a half hour drive one way. Another cost was the special food diet. It took me half a day to find the correct food because our prescription was wrong and the food listed did not exist. Finally, I guess our first mistake was allowing a teenager to decide on the fate of the cat. If my daughter had paid half or more of the cost, I think the decision would have been different.

Added charges of gas costs running too and from the Critical Care facility and buying special prescription cat food probably made this the ten thousand dollar cat.

We paid for an autopsy on Whiskers in an effort to help progress the understanding of this type of problem. The report came back stating that the surgeon had left a small sponge inside the cat. When the surgeon found out about this, he gave me a call to tell me his mistake and apologize. We both decided that this had NO effect upon Whiskers.

Recommendation: The surgery group told us that their track record was 80 percent success. The Internet gave the odds well below 50. There are a LOT of cats needing a home and throwing almost ten thousand dollars to save a cat now seems a bit ridiculous. It is somewhat cruel to say this but although Whiskers was part of the family, we should have let go.

Whiskers Put To Sleep

Whiskers Put To Sleep

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Today after feeding Whiskers, I returned to the laundry room to find him laying on his side and panting in short breaths.   I called to my wife and she took one look a the cat and said that we had to get him to the Critical Care unit right away.  We took the cat to this facility and they took a look at the cat quite quickly as I called to let them know we were coming and tried to describe the problem.  They took another X-ray and found a significant amount of fluid in the lungs.  We had a consultation with the doctor and we all agreed that the cat was not getting any better.  His quality of life was most assuredly not going to improve.  We decided to put the cat to sleep.

Whiskers surgery – Peg tube problem 5-15-07

Whiskers surgery – Peg tube problem 5-15-07

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This morning I could not get solids through the PEG tube.  I tied at least six times over two hours.  Out of frustration, I called the Critical Care facility and they suggested that I bring the cat in.   Once I arrived they took all the vital signs and found that the cat had lost one pound. They were concerned and gave me 8 cans of Eukanuba Veterinary Diet Maximum – Calorie food.  I was instructed to give 1 and 1/2 cans a day (before it was 2 and 1/2 cans).   I was told to mix about 1/2 cup of water to this new food as it had a runny consistency already.   They did find the PEG tube to be defective.   Whiskers respiration rate was just over 30 per minute.

Whiskers – High respiration problem. 5-16-07

Whiskers – High respiration problem. 5-16-07

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We gave Whiskers his normal feeding and medicine using the PEG tube. The cat vomited a small amount about a few minutes into the feeding. I had decided to administer the food over a 10 minute time instead of 5 minutes to minimize this problem. Whiskers took all the medications and food. We moved him into the laundry room with everything he would need for 10 minutes while I went to shower and shave. After dressing for my workout I went down and let him out. I noticed that he was breathing rapidly. I took a measure and came up with 54 breaths a minute. Yesterday he was breathing just above 30.

After coming back from my work out, I measured Whiskers breathing again and it was over 50 per minute. I called Critical Care and they suggested I bring the cat in. I called my wife and she suggested I call the surgery unit. I did and found that the cat who performed the surgery had the next two days off but they would call him at home for a consultation. About a half hour later the doctor called and I told him this new development. He told me to now aspirate the stomach contents out using the PEG tub too see how much was inside the stomach just prior to each feeding. Then calculate the difference to finish giving the cat the prescribed 30 cc. It is not uncommon for cats to not move stomach contents very fast after surgery. He suggested that I bring the cat in for an X-Ray to see if there is a significant fluid buildup in the lungs.

I took the cat in to Critical Care unit and they did withdraw fluid out of the cat’s lungs.   It was interesting that they did not charge for this visit.

Surgery on Whiskers.

Surgery on Whiskers.

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On May 9th Whiskers is put under the knife. The diagnosis was chylothorax, pleural effusion.  They cut the sack surrounding the heart and causing part of this heart problem. The surgeons try to attach the thoracic duct but find more than one duct. They cut out all but one, I believe not knowing which one is leaking into the lungs. They take a fatty tissue from the abdomen and put it in line with the duct to help in some way to mitigate the fluid reaching the lungs. So there were three parts of the surgery. They also put a tube leading out of the stomach for feeding and inserting medications.

The cost was $2,870.00 for this operation.

Whiskers needs surgery.

Whiskers needs surgery.

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We were notified to come down and meet with the medical staff. We arrived and were told that our cat had a heart murmur and most importantly his lungs were filling with fluid which we already knew. They did not know what was causing this and requested that we consent to surgery. We were given a 50% chance that the surgery would succeed. (Later, the surgeon told us their track record was close to 80% success). My wife asked me to make it my daughter’s decision as Whiskers was her cat. Nancy said she wanted us to save the cat and not to put it to sleep.