my cat has cancer. i was sure it was something different when bringing her in for surgery, so i didn't tell them to put her down right away if they find a malignant tumor. and they didn't. now she's carrying a sure death sentence with her, which makes everything harder. now i have to nurse her back to health, pay a shitload of money, too, to make sure her next weeks or months are as positive as possible for her, and then put her down when the tumors come back. i keep telling myself that at the end of the day, it's just a cat. why the fuck does it hurt so much? is this normal? i'm in my mid 30s, i have fought in a war. and now i cry every day over a stupid cat.
>>5077909this is one of those things where i have always wondered just how necessary veterinarians are. i have had many cats, and dogs, all live long happy lives, and the majority of them i have WASTED absurd amounts of money to figure out that they are unsavable and better off being put down.its a hard thing because no one wants to sit and watch their friend suffer, but the veterinary industry is so exploitative that i really do find myself questioning whether i should end this poor creatures pain myself or yet again submit to bringing an elderly animal to people who are going to tell me what i already know, that my animal is dying, and put me in debt alongside my sadness. I have almost always felt better when they pass comfortably at home somewhere comfy for them
>>5077909>my cat has cancerour dog has ovarian and breast cancer>now i have to nurse her back to health, pay a shitload of moneyMy dad is heavily attached and ended up spending +$5000 not including pills and special diet.>to make sure her next weeks or months are as positive as possible for herThis is literally the only reason I allowed the dog to get surgery. I want her to continue living, but not at the cost of her living standard.>then put her down when the tumors come back.Our dog's ovarian cancer was eradicated via spay. The breast cancer spread to her lungs. Our dog still eats, shits, and runs like nothing is wrong. Without removal of the mass, she would not be able to run and exist as she has and currently does. Quality of life is the name of the game. I like to believe we bought her 2-4 more years of GOOD living. However, I have steeled myself to put her down when she no longer can exist with a decent quality of life.Everyone and everything dies. At the very least, you bought your cat some months/years you would not have had together. I'm not a PETA fag and I don't care for cats much, but your cat has feelings and a soul, anon. It's a living creature our ancestors coexisted and evolved with.
>>5077909Cancer is rising for all species, across the board. I know two people who have cats with cancer, and one couple who has a dog with cancer. I know cancer rates in people are also skyrocketing. We're all being poisoned and idk what's causing it, but no one's dying to find out either because the findings will probably be bad for megacorpos polluting us with PFAS and microplastics.
>>5077913well desu in this case her passing wouldn't have been comfortably i think, it would have been slow and horrible. untreated cancer doesn't really let you go to sleep in peace.>>5077918ty. honestly the worst part for me is that now, i will have to decide when to put her down. and then say goodbye and bring her to the vet to put down. but that's on me, and things much, MUCH worse happened to much better people. i don't even regret spending the money desu, right now, she's recovering from the surgery, and getting lively. seeing her active and content again feels really good. i'm sure it'll be at least a few weeks until the tumor comes back, maybe even months, and I'll make sure she'll have a good time until then. I always had to watch her weight and she was on a diet most of the time, but i guess that's not necessary anymore - she can eat as much as she wants to from now on. One of the few perks of terminal illness i guess.
>>5078461I did the untreated cancer route. I had a feeling she had lymphoma but didn't connect the dots on her death bed when I realized her white blood cell counts were already relatively high in the summer when she kept losing weight. Instead I drugged the fuck up out of her with prednisone (which she needed anyways because she had IBS for 6 years to eat). But she also had a heart murmur + early CKD...she was boned one way or another. She died from septic periostitis caused likely by the lymphoma. She went septic and died in the span of a day. In her last hour she was barely conscious and I cried like a fucking bitch. I still cry. She was part of my life from 16->33. It feels like my youth ended with her. She was my first love. Even though 16 1/2 years was a long time I still feel like shit. I legitimately feel like she held out that long out of her love for me. This cat was so attached to me I'm convinced her IBS flareups were worst when I left on trips. I was in denial when I was in the hospital with her that it was happening and was convinced I could just take her home, force feed her, and she'd pull through even though her organs were failingEnjoy all your time with her. Virbac Rebound is a godsend btw, buy at least 2-3 bottles and a 30ml syringe. I'm combing through for pictures of her in chat logs with friends/exes on Facebook, old HDDs, and cell phones I didn't lose/break.This is my favorite pic of her and probably the one I'm going to print out for her urn.
>>5078548I'm very sorry, anon.
>>5077909>my cat has cancerlook into chlorine dioxide pet protocols
>>5078548looks like he was an awesome cat. and you sound like you gave him an awesome time in life.
>>5077909Yeah, my old cat died from most likely cancer some months ago. I am sorry, anon.
>>5078548>>5078766I just now noticed that your cat was female. Sorry, man.
>>5078550>>5078766>>5078802Its okay, I think the worst part about losing her especially if its your first + only cat is having to slowly "decat" your house. You start with throwing her litter out and the box with it, then the food bowls (I'm feeding her remaining food to the strays outside my apartment), then her medication. You then realize how much clutter/things belonged to the cat in your apartment and it makes you feel worse. Then later come her favorite boxes/scratchers. The toys I kept. She loved a little lamb chop plush where she'd walk around the house yowling with it calling for people to play with her. The bigger issue you're also going to run into OP is finding pictures. In my case I have a total of 8 pictures maybe 9 from 2009 when she was born to 2011. Thankfully from 2011-17 I made a bunch of cringey Instagram posts with her I kept, and I found my old iCloud account + Facebook Messenger convos with my ex that had pictures from 16-18. After I found a treasure trove of high quality pictures from 19-23 (Instagram Stories). I personally think it was a weird gap year, you didn't have big tech hoarding your data + the cellphones that existed at the time either got lost in my case or weren't good enough for pics. That or I simply took her for granted and didn't think of taking pictures. Maybe they were on photobucket or snapchat.This is from 2014, she caught her first mouse which was impressive for a indoor cat, the second one a year later she ate the head and left me the body. It made me sad yesterday looking through the pictures because she really lost a lot of spark around the 13 year mark. There was less pictures of her lying in boxes or playing. I remember around 2022 there were less and less zoomies. I was playing with my gf's parents cat and it made me miss her more when I got home to the point I broke down again. I miss her mischievous personality. Their cat was more quiet and serious. Mine was a little brat that would follow you around.
>>5078833>I'm feeding her remaining food to the straysNo compassion left for the animals the strays prey on?
>>5078924its inner city nyc i dont even have a backyard i live in a apartment complexthe animals are going to be rats/mice, pigeons, sparrows, and raccoonsits a open bag of medicated hills science diet gastrointestinal biome kibble that's already a few months old. as the ibs progressed she quit eating dry food for wet. probably the individual cans too.chewy was nice enough to give me a refund for the 3 months of medicated ibs wet hills science diet...im donating that to a shelter just a matter of which. pic related is my favorite one from my block's colony...i really hope she wasnt someones pet shes friendly
>>5078929also her from january probably my favorite cat from that colony, i dont endorse outdoor cats but im not sadistic/cruel either often they were loved at some point...especially here where no one keeps outdoor cats since 90% live in apartments.i wish i gave her curry as her last meal...my little girl was a curry fiend. would hover around me when i had chicken tikka masala, would wake up from a deep sleep when i opened, would wait for me to turn my back to even just get a lick....would even jump on the countertops to lick the dirty dishes after i ate it and left the dishes with water (found out she did that twice because her muzzle would be red/orange and smelling like curry). mind you she was 16 and doing this she was oddly aggressive to the point i'd argue it was her favoriteenjoy your every moment with them because it could be the last
>>5078548I know how you feel. It's a part of yourself that also dies with that cat. I had mine for 12 years and he was my bosom buddy. It's been 12 years since he died and I never got another cat. maybe one day, I keep saying to myself
>>5077909There are countless stories of both people and animals coming back from apparently terminal cancer and going to on live many more years. Don't assume the worst. Don't unreasonably get your hopes up either, but look into some cancer treatment and preventative protocols you can try. Even if they don't work, they won't hurt either and you'll feel better knowing that you're doing something positive rather than sitting around and passively waiting for something bad to happen.If it were my cat I'd at least put her on a fenbendazole protocol; there are tons of anecdotes from people curing their pet's cancer with it. Put your cat's info into this calculator and buy some livestock fenbendazole.>https://www.fenbendazole.org/fenbendazole-information/fenbendazole-dosage-guide/
>>5077909It's not just a cat, it's your cat.She's family, losing family hurts, they take some of you with them.
>>5078937fenbendazole is an antiparasitic with no anti-neoplastic properties. Its used to kill roundworms, tapeworms, and other stuff of a similar nature. To my knowledge there's no studies that show any anti-neoplastic effects. I mean, I wish there were, that stuff is cheap as shit and the old school vets love it, but it truly worked there should've been clear evidence of it by now. Also, the dosage that site recommends for cats is higher than is recommend as a typical dose, and may have some adverse effects as a result
>>5078971You retardhttps://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/44/9/3725There’s "doesnt work" and then there’s "no one will study it because big pharma would not make any money"
>>5078971>dunning-kruger midwit who has no idea what he's talking about still feels the need to chime in because he thinks he knows a lotYou're a complete and utter retard and I say that with full confidence in your aggressively below-average stupidity. Normally I wouldn't care but you're actively standing in the way of OP's cat potentially living for many more years all because you want to jump in and spout off about shit you don't understand you complete piece of SHIT.If you want to be an ignorant piece of human garbage then that's fine but using it as an excuse to harm people's pets by arguing against potentially lifesaving treatments puts you in a whole new category of scum.>To my knowledge there's no studies that show any anti-neoplastic effects.Because, as I hinted at above, you're an ignorant retard. If you'd spent even a couple minutes browsing the site I linked, you might have found studies like these:>https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-30158-6>Fenbendazole acts as a moderate microtubule destabilizing agent and causes cancer cell death by modulating multiple cellular pathways>https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2687140/>Unexpected Antitumorigenic Effect of Fenbendazole when Combined with Supplementary Vitamins>https://aacrjournals.org/mct/article/1/13/1201/167454/>The Anthelmintic Drug Mebendazole Induces Mitotic Arrest and Apoptosis by Depolymerizing Tubulin in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer CellsFuck you. If you were half as smart as you think you are then you would know that most drugs are used for a given purpose because it was discovered that they were effective at that purpose, not because they were created for that specific purpose. We are constantly discovering new uses for old drugs and the fact that a given drug has been traditionally used for one purpose has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it may be effective at an entirely different purpose.
>>5077913It depends. Sometimes you can buy than good time, and it's something amazing. Other times, like you describe, not so much. Every owner needs to make their own decisions with the information they have, and that's all anyone can do.
>>5077909Def try fenbendazole first. And stop feeding carbs and commercial pet food if you are. Raw human grade food only.
>>5078929>its inner city nyc i dont even have a backyard i live in a apartment complexso you enjoy the company of the strays while someone else has to clean their droppings>the animals are going to be rats/mice, pigeons, sparrows, and raccoonsdo you ever think to yourself those animals could make as pets as well? but i guess you believe that it's a dog eat dog world. explains your affinity to predators
>>5077909if you got the tumors removed then love her for as long as she seems to be enjoying life and then you need to make the decision of if you want to put her down or be with her until her natural end.my cat that I had for only his last quarter of his life became my entire being and before him I had 2 cats for only a few months and they were already on their way out and I watched them die. They both died while I was sleeping. One died in another room and the other one died next to me. They both looked horrible when they went. They were in pain and scared. I knew I couldn't have that for the next animal I was taking care of. After that it ended up that I was taking care of the cat who I loved with my entire being and I was out of a job. I couldn't pay to have him looked at by a vet. He loved me so much even when he was in pain and dying all he wanted was to be next to me. I held him really tight and I was able to have him put down after he couldn't get better. I still can't come to terms with it after 2 years. You will be in pain for a long time but you have to remember that you stopped their pain by doing this. You'll hate yourself forever if you don't.
>>5077909Make sure that in her illness she doesn't have the chance to get herself into trouble lest you not get the opportunity to deliver the mercy she deserves. This advice comes from what just happened to me with my dog of 10 years, Weakened from a severe nasal infection + a liver disease he stumbled down the river bank in my backyard in the hour I didn't have my eyes on him. By the time I finally located him yesterday, 24 hours later, He was long dead. He was days away from finishing his first round of steroids and antibiotics to fight the infection which was the primary determinant of whether his short term QoL would have remained poor enough to necessitate putting him to sleep, Which I was finding extra hard to bring myself to do while he had sleep apnea from the infection and such will to live even though whatever was happening to his liver was almost certainly terminal. I would be alone in my grief and guilt over not having mustered up the strength to euthanize him earlier had my love for him not been so shared by my father.
OP here, thank you very much everyone for your posts and suggestions. Here's a small update: i don't regret anymore that i haven't euthanized her directly. Stitches will be removed on monday, and right now, she's bursting with energy. I haven't seen her this active in months. She's eating everything i give her, quickly gaining weight, and we're having real quality time. I also went to another vet, just for a second opinion. She said before i don't have lab results, there's no use in jumping to conclusions. Even without surgery and bullshit like feline chemo therapy, she could still have years. Either way, right now, she's doing perfectly fine. Much better than before. As soon as i notice a decline in quality of life, i will have her put down.
>>5080861Be glad you're with her, in the wild animals don't live long enough to get this issues from late in their lifespans, she gets to enjoy being with you for so long because you are caring for her.
>>5080791Yo I know that guilt is the worst part, but you have to remember, you can't change the past, you can only change the future. Absolutely no use for anyone at all in being hard on yourself for mistakes you made in the past. These are platitudes, but sometimes, or pretty often actually, it's important to repeat them to yourself and truly take in their meaning for a moment. Another important platitude is that animals don't perceive things the way we do. Your dog most likely never felt mistreated or abandoned by you. 100%, because that's their nature, he loved you with every part of his being and felt the love you had for him.
>>5080925Thanks man it's just that... For nearly every pet my father and I have had in our lives we were there for them at the end. We were there for this dogs birth, The birth and death of his mother, and the death of her mother and father.At least my father and I found his body and will get to bury him with his family/pack, The thought we'd never get closure on where he was or what happened to him was killing us. With where he was found we have some small solaces too. He never left home, He did not suffer there the riverbank long or even at all, His last moments were spent at the graves of his family.
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>>5080861I think she's constipated again.. not sure if she's in pain, she might be, it's hard to tell. Yesterday she just took two very small shits, despite eating a lot. Today, nothing yet. Obvious sign of constipation, very bad sign in a cat that had a tumor removed two weeks ago that blocked her intestines. Can a tumor really grow back this fast? I know for a fact that it was gone, i paid a lot of money for the x-ray. Could it be just regular constipation from eating too much? I'd go to the vet straight away, problem is, my usual vet is closed this afternoon, and it's the only place where i can get treatment without cash. And i don't have any cash right now, due to her surgeries. Right now it doesn't seem like an emergency, yet. She doesn't vomit or anything, which would be the only "true" sign of an immediate emergency according to the vet, and she's still eating.I got the lab results in the mean time, it's an aggressive lymphoma. But even in this case, i was sure she would have at least a few months more. The vet said probably around 3 months, maybe a bit less, maybe more.
>>5081798>>5082068Ironic, given the subject of this thread.
>>5082075she's gone now.. had her euthanized an hour ago. the constipation didn't go away, on friday i had her x-rayed, there was a lot of poo in her intestines, and air. vet said she wasn't sure what blocked it. starting yesterday noon, she suddenly became apathetic. sure sign of pain. no reaction to anything. she also threw up, not like a cat normally does, but almost like a human. i have never seen in this in my life. like half a liter of vomit. took her to the vet to euthanize yesterday, but apart from the behaviour and vomiting, she didn't seem in a bad state.. so we decided against euthanizing, gave her painkillers and laxatives instead. no change at all. i gave her some time, but this morning, i decided that it's time to let her go. took her to another vet that was open for emergencies. they made her go to sleep, i held her until she was gone. it was ok. i was scared shitless beforehands, being afraid that she'll cry or make a scene in panic, but nothing. she was very, very calm and quiet. she passed peacefully. i also feel a lot better now that it's over, the last weeks were terrible. i will "de-cat" the apartment now.cancer fucking sucks, man. at least it was "just" my cat.>>5083355kek
>>5083378I'm sorry brother, It sounds like your cat knew you loved her and that she was safe wherever she was with you.
>>5083450Thanks man. I like to think that's true, i probably would even if it wasn't, but i think it actually is. I was terribly afraid of having to get her out from under the bed to get to the vet, that she'd be afraid and scared, that our last interactio in our home would be me grabbing her against her will or something.But then, when the time came, she wasn't under the bed. She had been sitting there almost motionless for hours, but just in that moment, she decided to give the toilet a try. Sadly she couldn't discharge anything, but i could just pick her up and put her in the box, without the slightest hesitance or resistance. Felt like a small miracle.
>>5083378>i will "de-cat" the apartment now
>>5083762Removing all the cat stuff. Food, toys, bowls, beds, toilet.
I'm killing myself when my cat dies. I would have already done it had my ex not made us get them. They're the only things that have ever made me truly happy. I can't live in this shit world with all this suffering. They help me forget. Without them I can't forget. I hate humanity so much. I hate this planet and I hate all of you. Fuck you.
>>5084041i get it, really. i know how it feels. but it's not healthy bro. get over this. you can, you're capable. you just have to find the right way for yourself. but it's worth it, believe me.
>>5077909>it's just a cat. why the fuck does it hurt so much? is this normal?Just means you are an ensouled White guy.
>>5078971we now know why antiparasitics like mebendezole, fenbendezole, an ivermectin work against cancer cells, they use the same metebolic pathways to grow as parasites use to feed.
>>5077909Is that kingcobra edited to look like a caveman?
literally on the verge of tears reading these repliesmy buddy turns 17 in a couple monthshe's starting to experience liver failureevident jaundice and getting a bit thinner with every vet visitpic rel is nearly ten years oldit's hard to grasp for me
>>5084294Its just a cat you’ll be ok
>>5084295you're right, thanks!
>>5084269It's not edited, it's just him while coloring his hair and beard
>>5084041Get a different cat. The great dr pol (national geographic) advises his patients to get new pets when their current one is dying (from what I recall).
>>5078135The common element humans and pets both intake might be tap water…
>>5084553>muh precious bodily fluidsCancer cases are "rising" because other diseases are being beaten back, and if you live long enough you're basically guaranteed to get some kind of cancer eventually.
>>5077909I miss Cobes.
>>5084705me too, unironically. i actually liked him. his death actually hit me. i'm so fucking sorry for clint, i got drunk several times and cried a lot when it happened. parasocial relationships are a bitch.
>>5084294you'll get through this bro, like me, or that other guy, or all the other people who lost pets or people they loved. you'll get out of it stronger than before, like everyone else. it just takes some time.
We just put my cat down today. He was really my wife’s cat, but she had him before we moved in together, so he always felt like a member of the family for the past 13 or so years we’ve been together. I wasn’t expecting it to affect me as much as it did when they put him to sleep but once my wife started sobbing I got a lump in my throat and I had to look away.
>>5084899lol this faggot cried like a bitch and then goes online to pretend he didn't
>>5077909Make sure not to feed any plant-derived foods to your cat and give more fresh meat.It will help with energy and health as time passes.Also it's just a cat. They die.
>>5084899i was stone cold when they put down my cat. felt more relief than anything. bitch tears for all the dogs though
>>5077913Useful if they're young and are showing symptoms of a treatable disease, if they're just 12+ years old and suffering from age related illness, it's just a money pit that will result in more stress for the animal and you.
