sigh

[mmegaera]

I think I've finally hit the point of no return with Linnet (the orange cat in the icon). He's back down below nine pounds again (in his prime he was twelve muscular pounds -- these days he looks anorexic), for one thing, not eating worth a darn and when he does you can tell it pains him, and is having trouble getting up and down the stairs. I took him to the vet today, trying to get some sort of idea as to what decisions to make, which turned out to be a mistake. The vet wanted to run a bunch of tests. I told her it was overkill, frankly, given Linnet's age and condition and his history with his stomach, and I'm not willing to put him through a bunch of bloodwork and whatever else they want to do (prior experience with Linnet's stomach troubles tells me bloodwork will probably be just the beginning of the process -- there's a definite point of diminishing returns here, which aren't any fairer to him than they are to me since every time he's gone in for his stomach over the last ten years we've gotten worse results, and I don't want to start something that'll get harder to stop the further we go).

I'm this close to just having him put down. It's really hard watching him starve himself to death.

It's just that I've never had to make a decision like this before, and I don't know how to do it or when's the right time to do it. I knew going in this morning that this visit was more for me than for him, but the vet wasn't any help on that score, she didn't want to even talk about how we could simply make his remaining time more comfortable without proving beyond a doubt that nothing could be done, for her it was all or nothing.

Thoughts? I've never dealt with an elderly (he turned 17 in August), ailing pet before, and I really don't know what to do.

Nobody ever gave me instructions on this part of pet ownership.