This is Ryan. She’s my cat, and she’s dying.
Not today, no. Today, she’s doing OK. But in the last month or two, she has lost half her body weight and has had to be hospitalized. Her kidneys are failing, and in order for her to live comfortably, we have to give her subcutaneous fluids (using an IV bag and a rather large needle inserted into the loose skin behind her neck) once a day.
Our makeshift kitty subcutaneous fluid station. And lotion dish.
Because her kidneys aren’t working properly anymore, Ryan cannot metabolize protein very well. So she has to eat a special kind of cat food that has a lower protein content and requires a prescription to buy, for reasons I still don’t really understand.
Apparently, you can require a prescription for cat food.
We also have to give her liquid medicine orally two times a day that helps to normalize the creatinine levels in her blood. And a quarter pepcid tablet to settle her stomach.
It’s a lot of work, and yes–it’s a lot of money.
Ryan will be 16 years old as of this month. I adopted her from the Humane Society when I was in college, living off-campus in my first real apartment. Before college, I had always lived with animals, and couldn’t bear the thought of another year without a pet of my own to keep me company. Though I have always thought of myself as more of a dog person than a cat person, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to sneak a dog past the apartment managers where I lived. As it was, I had to give the Humane Society a phony number to call to confirm my apartment complex’s pets policy, and badger my friend, Daewon, into answering his phone by saying, “Oak Creek Apartments,” when they called. That’s right–my adoption of Ryan was perpetrated based on a lie, but it seems to have worked out well for us both.
Over the years Ryan has moved with me up and down the California coast, from Mountain View to Menlo Park, to Santa Barbara, and San Diego, and back up to Hollywood and beyond. There were many years there where Ryan was my chief support system–during isolated, pre-sober years while I was writing a Master’s Thesis, I would cry into her fur with loneliness and fear for my future. Later, when I was recovering from surgery, Ryan would tip toe up onto my pillow and snuggle against the side of my head. She has always slept on my pillow, every night, even after I betrayed her by getting a golden retriever, Sidney, who usurped her for time and attention the way that a dog always does to a cat.
Now that she’s sick, Ryan spends more time hiding in the closet, where she is safe from Mini and his toddler grabs and his “Meow-meow!” taunts. But when I wake up in the middle of the night, she’s still there, every night, purring away. And if I pet her, she will make the same peculiar noise of acknowledgment that she has always made, that sound that makes us think she has swallowed a pigeon and it’s stuck in her throat.
For now, Ryan is still enjoying a decent quality of life, even with all her medications and her IV routines. We will continue to give her the treatments until she stops being responsive, or stops purring so readily, because we do not want her to suffer. But for now, she’s still with us, and we are glad.
To keep her with us, we have had to spend a great deal of money on Ryan in the past few weeks. She was hospitalized for a few days, and all of her medicines and special hospital equipment do not come cheap. But what choice is there? Perhaps there was a time where a cat reached this point in life and people would just put them down in lieu of spending money on them. Or, perhaps, they would have noticed her dramatic weight loss, assumed she was dying of old age (which she is) and natural causes (which she is) and just have let nature take its course? I’m not sure.
Because the question of whether it’s frugal or penny wise to own a pet is akin–perhaps not identical, but yes, akin–to asking whether it’s frugal to decide to have a kid. Which is to say that, other than knowing it will have a financial impact, the cost is just not something that can fully enter into the equation. You do not decide to never have kids because they are expensive, and the same rule holds true for pets. If you decide having a pet is important to you, then you accept that responsibility, along with all of the possible complications that might occur much as you do when you decide to have or adopt a child. Ryan has been a remarkably healthy cat for nearly all of her life: all I’ve really had to buy for her in 16 years is food, cat litter, and some toys here and there. (Oh, and Doritos–she is a sucker for Doritos.) But as she declines, she may start to cost more than ever before, just to keep her comfortable. It’s kind of a deal I made with her, I guess: she gave me her 16 years on this planet as my companion, and in return I’ll make sure her time left here is as enjoyable as possible.
Ryan is living out her golden years with Coast, Mr. Right-Click's cat.
Even with the expense, is there any other choice to be made?
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You really should have a warning at the top of this post for any hormonal pregnant women who might be reading and start crying less than halfway through…I’m just saying.
I think you’re absolutely right that there’s no other choice to make when it comes to a pet. In my family, we’ve had pets my whole life and the hardest thing in the world isn’t continuing to pay for their care when they get old and sick–it’s stopping when the care is more for our benefit than theirs. But my thought has always been that they give us love and devotion for their entire lives, the least we can do is give them the care they deserve, until it’s not in THEIR best interests anymore. Pets aren’t frugal, no, but sometimes the rewards aren’t about money.
Once, when I was in my twenties and dealing with a cat medical problem, my dad said to me on the phone, “Maybe having pets is just too expensive a hobby for you.”
That’s the true mark of a non-pet person.
Love the photo of the cats holding paws. So sweet!
I was reading the super exclusive private Dave Ramsey message boards for awhile (the “My Total Money Makeover” boards that you had to have a paid membership to access) and periodically the pet topic would come up. Even the most die hard frugal folks were spending serious cash on pets. It’s just what we do! You can’t NOT pay for it. I mean really. You just can’t.
We once paid $450 for IV fluids and “observation” when our cat got heatstroke (!) then he got eaten by a coyote like two days later.
I found this post through a link on Like Merchant Ships. Wow. Our cat Calvin also has kidney disease. His isn’t that advanced yet, but he does take 3 pills a day and battles frequent bladder infections. I worried about whether or not I could even go to youth camp this year because he had an infection that wasn’t responding to antibiotic treatment for the longest time. I nearly cried when a few of our youth insensitively told me that was a dumb reason to miss camp. They were really just trying clumsily to talk me into going, but it hurt me. I made a commitment to Calvin when we adopted him, and that includes sometimes missing fun stuff when he’s too sick to be left.
I wish your sweet pet didn’t have to go through this, but I do find some small comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in this. It’s sad and scary and heartbreaking knowing that the end draws ever closer, so I’m enjoying every day with my sweet boy. Continue to enjoy what time you have left with your Ryan.