I recently had to put my kitty to sleep. He was 2 1/2 years old and dealing with …

I recently had to put my kitty to sleep. He was 2 1/2 years old and dealing with leaking at times, then blockages. He had this issue for over a year. We switched him to the Purina prescription wet cat food for Urinary Tract issues. He wasn’t a fan of drinking water from a bowl, so we added 1-2oz of water to his wet food. His total water intake was about 8-9oz of water daily (He was only an 8lb cat and the water also includes what the canned food provided.) He was hospitalized 3 or 4 times — the last time he was in the ER for 14 days. The vet didn’t put the catheter in correctly for the first time — causing major urine scolding on his rear end. They did the catheter correctly for another 7 days. A month later, blocked again. With his issue, PU surgery was not an option. His blockages and urethra damage was too far up close to the bladder — this was told to us by multiple vet opinions. With multiple vet opinions, the only suggestion with the last blockage was to do the same 7 day catheter to help the urethra repair again. Our primary vet was honest with us and said that this option would help him, but wasn’t sure if we would ever have a permanent solution to his blockages. In total, we probably spent upwards of $15,000 with all of these issues over the year (The 14 day emergency room stay was $6,500). Money was not a factor for my wife and I — If I knew we could actually fix him and give him a good quality life, I couldn’t put a price tag on it. With a lot of discussion, we decided it was best to put him to sleep. Feeling good for a weeks or a month, then blocking again, then lengthy procedures wasn’t fair for him. It’s been 3 days since we put him to sleep and I can’t help but feel guilt like we didn’t do everything we possibly could do. I did so much deep diving in google for ANYTHING — I read up on stents, bypasses, etc. I truly don’t think there was anything else we could. It would help me feel better if you could give you opinion on if we did everything we could. Thank you!

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Krista Magnifico
1 year ago

Hello I’m so sorry to hear about your kitty. These cases and this condition sometimes go like this. As much as we try to do everything to avoid them they do happen. Urethral tears and complications from unblocking happen because the area is so sensitive and the tissue so thin and fragile and the force and effort so intense to try to unblock. There is no way around these misfortunate unhappy endings with some of these. It’s why so many cases don’t even get to the point of unblocking. We have to explain that things like this can happen and… Read more »