Advice please

Here is some of Zi's background (along with the others)

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=212255

We have had a bad weekend, and I just dont know what to do next. She has been grumpy for the past couple of days, which sometimes is just her, but sometimes that things are hurting a bit. Since last night, she keeps losing her balance and stumbling/falling over, even if she is sitting down. I don't know if it is arthritis or kidney related - I think her arthritis is fairly bad, she doesn't often stand/sit/walk on her front paws, she walks on the bit between her paw and the first joint (managed to get a pic of it last night) I really don't know whether to put her through more tests to see if it is something we can treat (bearing in mind she has other conditions that impact on her quality of life, so I could put her through pain/stress of tests and treating one thing for her to decline anyway with something else), or accept she is 20 with multiple issues and has defied both mine and the vets thoughts of how long she would have, and that she has had enough of fighting. The other thing she did last night that concerned me was something she has done randomly for a few months, but never in the same room as me - she normally makes an awful yowl when she is upstairs and I am downstairs, but last night she did it when we were both in the front room. She had her back to me, was in front of the water bowl and just looked at it and yowled about 3 times, before shutting up and having a drink, so now I don't know if that is what she has been yowling at the last few months and what that is a sign of. She has also decided not to bother eating this morning, she looks at the food bowl, and then decides to ignore it, even when I put it in front of her.

Thanks very much, it has been a very hard day. There are things it could be that could be treatable, but I have to decide which way to go - i was in the same position last year, and opted to go for the tests, and we have spent most of the last year battling to get meds down her throat, I have nearly stopped so many times this year, and that is what is making me wonder if putting her through more tests and poss more medication is the right thing for her. If it is something like low potassium, we could go through the bloods and trying to get supplements into her, but her mouth is definitely getting worse, so I could be putting her through things ultimately for nothing.

i absolutely hate being in this position, and am just praying today is a bad day and we are back to normal tomorrow, but I know we are running out of time, we have run out of options on all of her health issues, and I think the vet is surprised she is still here, she made me think about quality of life 3 months ago.

Well, she has eaten a bit more today and stopped preventing me from stroking her head. Her legs have been fine since, but I did see her yowling at the water bowl again last night, I know her kidneys are worse than her last bloods 6 months ago - the irony is that I was going to make an appointment last week to have her bloods rechecked, but now it doesn't seem worth it. I have made an appointment for tomorrow just in case, as I can always cancel if she continues to perk up, unfortunately the vet I prefer is off till the New Year.

Thanks for that LDG, it is a tricky situation though as to stop all her renal food (although she does enjoy the dry), means things would speed up even quicker - I did give her some cat pilchards on Sun though, but she barely touched them either - she has been enjoying the extra cat treats though. What I would love to be able to do the most is stop her meds, as she hates them, but to do that means we would have 2 days max before I would have to let her go.

Thanks - didn't get on the PC at all yesterday as I had a nightmare day with Clyde, who I had to have pts.

Zi seems to be better, she is eating (although it seems less than she used to, but then she is 20 and not very active), her legs seem better and she hasn't yowled since the other night. I have also changed her biscuits and she seems to be managing them better, even if she does eat them one at a time!! I have cancelled today's appointment, and hope that she can cope over Christmas.

Thanks everyone

have had a really good morning with Zi, she has had two lots of wet, is on her third lot of dry, and has also had a few temptations and a bit of my cereal milk. She sometimes looks slightly unsteady on her back legs, but then she is 20 with arthritic hips, so think she is entitled - and it didn't stop her moving quickly and swiping Buster earlier!!

hmm, thought i had posted on here yesterday!! She has been resisting meds since Christmas Day night, and last night was a really bad night, I had to climb under the computer desk again, and tried to fuss her first, she was fine with that till she saw the syringe, and immediately moved her head to make it awkward to get to her mouth, clamped her mouth shut, and kept moving her head away from me. While i eventually managed it, I have decided to accept she has had enough of me syringing it into her, i wont give her any tonight, which means I have to let her go tom/Thurs. She hasn't eaten that much overnight or this morning, unless you give her treats, which she can't live on (and they are 10% higher in protein than her renal food, so will put her kidneys under a lot of pressure). She was limping again yesterday too. It is a year tomorrow since we saw the nice vet, although i had suspected it prior to that, so I think we have done amazingly well to get this far, there have been so many times i have thought that I wasn't being fair to her.

Thanks - she is fairly bright and interested in food this morning, so I am going to monitor her for now, and probably make the appointment for tomorrow.

I let her go this morning - while she had been fairly bright most of yesterday, her limp started really flaring up in the evening, and I had to shut her in the bathroom with her tea for an hour to get her to eat something, so I made the appointment this morning. As soon as the vet shaved her leg, he said her tendons were collapsing, which explains why she has been walking funny - he also managed to get a look in her mouth, and it was incredibly red - but she has had no Metacam for 2 days, so the inflammation was getting worse. She went part way through the injection, so very quick, so i think I got the timing right. RIP little one.

Thanks very much - she certainly proved both me and the vet wrong more than once.

Thanks very much.

I went through my records last night, I have lost 15 cats (including fosters, although some of those have been here longer than cats I adopted) and Clyde since August 2002.

I'm not sure about strong at the moment!!

I dont know how I do it at times, but I know that most of them would have ended up living their life out in a rescue, and for some of them, like Molly, they would have been dead years ago - I took her on 5 years ago as we didn't think she had long left, she was just depressed. Zi had been in the rescue for ages, as they were told she had liver issues (I disproved that), so no one wanted a 17yo with health issues, but she had 3 years here. It is very hard dealing with this part, but offset by the knowledge that they got what all cats deserve - a loving home with someone who loves them, and I just wish I could afford to help more, but as I have a knack of picking cats with health issues, it does restrict me.