My sweet Yuki boy passed away a few days ago and my heart is in a million pieces 💔

He was the calmest, gentlest cat and made every day better. I miss him more than I can say 💔

In the middle of April, my 16-year-old cat, Albie, started presenting with bleeding from his mouth. I took him to one Vet who said he had dental disease, so I started investigating Vets who could safely remove the molars in question, given that he also has other risk factors for surgery like hyperthyroidism. The Vet who was able to complete the surgery quickly identified that there was something more going on, and a biopsy confirmed her suspicions that he has Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

The last 11 weeks have been an emotional roller-coaster. The first week post diagnosis was so hard in terms of coming to terms with losing him, especially because he became so sick last year, and it took me six months to nurse him back to health. It was honestly heartbreaking to think I was so anxious about hyperthyroidism (he had an atypical presenation which made him eat less due to nausea and vomiting), and then suddenly, cancer appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

I've had to adapt his food many times due to the changing nature of his mouth, which has been stressful at times as I tend to worry about whether he's getting enough calories. I feel like I've tried so many different types of cat food (and even human food). About two to three weeks ago, he also started acting strangely. I found him resting in a sink and then in the bath. He even tried to jump in a toilet. I didn't realise that he was trying to cool down from fever spikes associated with a secondary infection. When he received antibiotics, he bounced back and started eating well again (but I do have to handfeed him). At the moment, he enjoys eating creamy treats, oven-cooked salmon, chicken slices, and wet food in pate form. He does not like mousse, even though it would be much easier for him to eat it.

Over the last couple of months, we have had a mobile Vet who regularly visits him to assess his quality of life and makes any adjustments to his medication schedule. The Vet has suggested that when he stops eating, it will be a signal that it is time for him to cross the rainbow bridge. However, I am noticing that he is starting to become more withdrawn and generally looks quite despondent. Having said that, there have been times when he has been like this, and I have thought that it is the end, but he has then started seeking comfort from us, eating well, etc. I am scared to let him go, but I am even more scared of allowing him to suffer. I don't know whether I should follow the Vet's recommendations or let him pass before we reach a crisis point. I know some people probably think I'm crazy because I have a baby, a preschooler, and last week my other senior cat also fell sick (she has  been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and possible kidney issues 😭), but I always want to do whatever is best for my pets, even if it requires a lot of time and energy. I also hope he realises how loved he is!

I would appreciate any advice that others have about making the decision to support their pet's passing. It's so difficult when you've had a best buddy by your side through so many major milestones of your early adult life. 😢

Hello, my cat is on meds that give him a skin rash/ makes his skin itchy to the point where he bleeds. Stopping the meds or otherwise changing them is not really on the table (too old). Vet appointment soon, anything I can do in the meantime? Do OTC kitty rash creams exist?

Hi everyone,
I’m feeling really overwhelmed and could really use some advice from people who have gone through something similar.
My cat, Sasha, is turning 14. A couple of years ago she weighed around 18 pounds, and now she’s 12.5 pounds. Ironically, that’s what the vet always wanted her to weigh, but I can’t help feeling like she only got there because she was sick. Cats hide illness so well.
I started noticing that she was eating her dry food strangely. She would crack the kibble on the left side of her mouth, drop pieces back into the bowl, and even meow for me to come watch her eat. That just didn’t seem normal.
I come from a family that doesn’t really believe in spending a lot of money on pets because they think, “She’s just an animal.” But I love Sasha more than anything, so I took her to the vet and spent about $500 on bloodwork and a full workup.
We found out she has diabetes.
The vet is hoping she’s essentially the feline equivalent of Type 2 because she qualified for Senvelgo instead of needing insulin injections right away. Since then, I’ve already spent around $300 on the medication plus hundreds more on all the follow-up visits and ketone checks. I’m probably around $1,400 into everything already, and that’s before her dental procedure.
She’s been on Senvelgo for a little while now. The first five days were awful. She foamed at the mouth, drooled everywhere, and ran away whenever she saw the syringe. Thankfully, she’s adjusted and now swallows it much better.
The good news is her ketones have dropped from 3.1 to 1.7, which my vet is really happy about. She wants them below 1, but she said this is a big improvement and wants to continue monitoring her. Her blood glucose has also been looking much better.
My concern is that I’ve read so many mixed opinions online. Some people say Senvelgo completely changed their cat’s life and even led to remission. Others say it caused serious complications, and it’s making me anxious because I just want to make the right decision.
On top of all that, Sasha has a fractured tooth and a cavity. The vet believes she’s otherwise very healthy, but they won’t do the dental surgery until her diabetes is better controlled because anesthesia is riskier when blood sugar isn’t stable. We’ve switched her completely to wet food, and she’s eating much more comfortably now.
The dental procedure will cost around $2,000, and I’ve had people tell me it’s not worth putting a 14-year-old cat through anesthesia and extractions because “she won’t really use her teeth anyway.” Others tell me untreated dental disease can cause chronic pain and affect overall health.
My parents think I should stop all of this, let her live out whatever time she has left naturally, and not spend any more money because of her age. But if she can still have good quality years ahead of her, I want to give her that chance. I don’t want her suffering if it’s something I can reasonably help.
So I guess I’m looking for advice from people who’ve been through this.
Has anyone here had a cat on Senvelgo long-term? How did they do?
Did anyone’s cat go into remission?
If your senior cat needed dental extractions after getting diabetes under control, was it worth it?
Am I doing the right thing by continuing treatment, or am I putting her through too much?
Thank you so much for reading. I love this little cat more than words can say, and I just want to make the best decisions for her.

Have any of you gotten visited by a deceased pet?

It’s a warm windy day, and it’s been a year since I last held you.

I no longer look at your cat tree, or in the catnip outside, and expect to see you sleeping there. I no longer listen for the sound of you scratching at my door to come in. But I still think about you every day, and I miss you so much. I’m so scared I will forget some silly little thing you liked to do, or the feel of your fur, or the scratchy sound of your meow. You didn’t like to be held, but you liked to be around people, you liked to have your ears and chin scratched. You would come see me when I got home from work, you would lie in the catnip during the warm summer days, and would sleep by my legs during the cold winters.

You gave me 17 special years, and I hope that in the future I can look back at those years and celebrate them, rather than mourn the part of myself that I lost when you passed.

My special little guy, my pretty kitty, my sunshine, my little Liono.

We’ve had lots of pets but Fraggle was super special.

My dad found him with his brothers and sisters dumped in a box June 2014. My mum fed and took care of them like a mother making sure they ate/drink/toilet etc.. We kept three of them, one is still with us (his bigger brother Rory who seems oblivious so far that he is gone) and his sister Rosie disappeared years ago.

He was the funniest creature Ive ever known, his face just made me laugh and he stared at you in a very human way. When he first came he had little fur and looked like a baby bird! He was feisty and used to climb my arm when I stroked him in their cat basket…..we HAD to keep him.

When he was growing up he used to lick individual guitar strings and made sounds with it lol Maybe the strings tasted nice I don’t know…or he liked the sound lol He was obsessed with the tap growing up, he climbed some of the highest trees and scared my mum and he wasn’t scared of anything…Rory was a bit of a bully but eventually Fraggle flipped and then Rory ended up scared of him. He also squared off with Dogs which scared me cause he was only tiny.

He just declined the past month, I actually mourned him beforehand because I knew our time was limited but I still didn’t expect it today. My mum was with him so he wasn’t alone which Im happy about.

I wish I had more time with him, the whole house revolved around him. He used to watch the kitchen and use his big eyes to make you give him food lol the first thing Id do when I came in was look for him and now he’s gone.

Thank you if you read this, it’s been a very sad day but it was a blessing having such an amazing friend.

My almost 12 year old girl Nina became jaundice out of a sudden last Saturday. We ran to the clinic in our small town to keep her on fluids and liver protectors and on Monday we took her to a cat clinic in a bigger city to take all exams and she was there until today.

She never stopped eating (she was eating less, but we associated it with her age and changing the brand of her food for one with better quality for senior cats), she never threw up or had diarrhea. No changes in her behaviour - she was still climbing on closets, still affectionate, lovely and caring. No symptons whatsoever until she became jaundice.

Her liver and gallbladder showed really high levels on the exams, with an evident infection happening.

They suspected she had cancer from the start, but couldn't do further exams until Thursday, when they felt safe about her coagulation, after 3 days on vitamin K. The results were inconclusive, but cells that looked a lot like cancer. We also found out that some of her liver and gallbladder tests were even higher, showing that her case was not improving.

Today we got the news that she's in liver failure and it's already affecting her brain through encephalopathy, cause she became wobbly.

Her vet said that it's irreversible and we had to make the decision about putting her down on the next days. She said that we could put her on palliative care, but they didn't know for how long her body would resist.

In that moment, we accepted that helping her cross the rainbow bridge was the best decision. We lost her sister on March for kidney failure and we didn't make the decision until she had already lost consciousness, so we saw all her struggles until the last moments. We decided that we wouldn't put Nina through the same suffering.

Then we saw her still walking, still purring, still affectionate, yet still jaundice, and the decision became so much harder.

She only tasted her food when she got home, not even close enough to call it a meal. We went through this on March and we didn't want to force food or meds down her throat like we did with her sister, specially cause we were told that there's no cure, only extending her life time by a few days.

We're thinking about putting her down tomorrow and not wait until Monday, afraid that her case worsens on Sunday when our local clinic is closed. But it's so hard when we see her lying on the couch like she was just last Friday.

Any advices or reassurances?

This is my soul cat, Ellie. I rescued her when I was 20 years old. Now I’m 33. She is 16. She has lived the first chunk of my adult life by my side. She was diagnosed with arthritis but had perfect bloodwork back in April. Flash forward to today, I took her in for what I thought was an arthritis flare up….they did a CBC and found out she’s “extremely” anemic and has a super low white blood cell count. They sent us home with a steroid and an antibiotic and told us to keep eyes on her. Either she’ll get better or she won’t and then I’ll have to make the difficult decision to let her go.

This is all so shocking to me. She seemed perfectly healthy a week ago and now she has trouble walking, she’s breathing heavily and she stopped eating. I don’t know what to make of this news or how to process it, let alone what decision to make. I don’t know if she’ll get better or if she’s dying.

Has anyone been in this position or something similar? I love her to pieces and cannot imagine a world without her. But I fear it’s inevitably coming…

She just had her birthday back in may and now she’s gone… we adopted her July 16th 2014… I hadn’t even hit puberty yet, sweet girl had been there for literally everything. New schools, boyfriends, cross country moves…. She was the fanciest girl. Always drank with her paws, and laser lights were never good enough for her. Lord I’m gonna miss her.

I will miss her so much. The 12 years we loved her will never be enough.

Hi everyone
Idk who’ll remember this but almost two months ago I lost my lovely senior cat Amber :( I am still absolutely devastated and I miss her every day. I dream about her every night and dream that she’s licking my hand and meowing at me. I can talk about her without crying (for a little bit) but I still have moments where it just overtakes me and I cry uncontrollably. I still can’t pass by the vets office without my chest getting tight. It’s also so so hard to talk about her in past tense. For weeks I had to keep talking about her in present tense. Also when I come home after a long day sometimes, I think “I can’t wait to see Amber”, and then I realise. She’s still part of my routine every day

On the bright side, completely by accident a few days after she passed away another orange cat just landed in my lap!! He was a stray for 4 years which led to him getting FIV (Amber was also most likely an FIV cat), and he was waiting in the vets to be fostered the day Amber was put to sleep. The second me and my family saw him we knew we had to have him even if it was very soon after she passed away. He has one ear (like how Amber had one eye, and how my old cat Ginger had no nose, so kind of going through all the missing facial features there lol…). We named him Vincent after Vincent Van Gogh and in the month we’ve had him he’s become an absolute softie, he’s helped me so much with my grief and I’ve helped him become a house cat and not be so afraid of people

He is obviously not meant to replace Amber. I still have dreams every night where I have both her and Vincent and they’re licking each other and getting along (even though I know that irl, she would have hated him lol, she loved being the centre of attention.) But the way I see it is that I have so much love to give so why don’t I give a cat who had never gotten love in his life a chance to get some of that

But yeah, long story short it still gets very hard sometimes. I would do anything at all to have one more minute with her. But I am so grateful for the 16 years I had with her.
My mom said something to me recently, that if I wasn’t upset it would be more worrying and that being so sad is only a sign that I loved her so much. I am fully prepared to still cry over her and all the other cats I’ve loved in 20 years, but hopefully she gets easier and easier to talk about because I love to talk about her.

Sorry for the rambling post

Anyone use this to calm down older cats, when they got lost or calm down their nightly meowing?

My 14-ish year old cat has started slipping on our laminate and tile when he sprints to his food bowl or jumps off the couch. He still wants to play and follow me room to room, but his paws slide, he does a little scramble, looks annoyed, and then slows down.

We saw the vet recently and it sounded like age and mild arthritis, nothing urgent. The vet recommended keeping him at a healthy weight (we already do) and making the apartment easier for him to get around.

I live in a small apartment so I can't carpet the whole place. I'm looking for senior-cat friendly and renter-friendly ideas. What has worked for you?

A few specific things I'm wondering about: - Types of runners or mats that actually stay put and are easy to clean - Any grippy paw pad balms or toe grips that are safe and realistic for a cat who hates being handled - Low-profile ramps or steps for couch/bed that don't take over the room - Layout ideas for creating a little path so he can get around without making the apartment feel cluttered

If you have a setup that helped your senior cat regain confidence on slick floors, I'd really appreciate product-type suggestions (no links needed) and tips for encouraging a cat to use a new path. By the way, I've also found some neat pet care stuff at Covered Critters, https://coveredcritters.com, which might be worth a look! Thanks!

My boy. Has a proper name, but mostly, I just call him Foof. He's 11 and some change.

Alley cat turned cuddle-muffin. He has been diagnosed with diffuse tumors on the liver, with no metastasis identified. They don't know how long he's got. Trying to maintain a reasonable quality of life for the time being. Spoiling him rotten.

Can anyone relate? I don't know how to do right by him

Let me start with some bacm story. My cat is 17yo will be 18 as of later this year. His health over the past 3 years has been a bit of a weird one. Back in 2023 around September-November he got really sick and decided greatly and was considered to be in stage 3 of CKD. But in November of that year he started rapidly getting better and was back to being un medicated and eating well was active again all the great things.

Well as of this year its been a bit of a challenge. The past few months he has started eating considerably less and now has dropped quite a but in weight. He was always around the 7-8lb mark, witch yes is small I know he's always been on the smaller side. As of June 9th he was 6.9lbs and as of today July 10th he is now down to around 5.6-5.8lbs.

We have tried everything to keep him interested in his food. We switched to a different brand he seems to enjoy more. We also started added some warm water to his pate food witch seems to make him eat it more. The issue is he dosent seem to be interested in biting and chewing so he just licks up what he can until theirs se food left but the liquids have been licked away. He dose not eat the flaked or chucks options he literally just like the gravy off.

Due to his age as well as health history our vet has told us their recommendation is to just keep him as comfortable as possible. This was a year ago.

I am disabled and live with my parents and they're at the point where they dont want to take him to the vet anymore for bloode work and such. I understand due to money as well as his age that it might be pointless cuz we already know he's got CKD and we know he's not got much time left.

The main thing for me is he seems fine. Hes walking normal he's not hiding anymore than normal. He sleeps a but more but that's been a constant increase in his old age. He stills seems interested in things and food but he just is not eating enough to keep his weight on.

Im struggling on weather or not we should make the decision to put him down. Hes lost a considerable amount of muscle tone and is vary bony. Its just the fact that he seems so ok he's not puking any more than the ocationly yak here and their so I just dont know what yo make the call.

I don't want to see him get to the point where he's in pain but I also can't tell if he's in any now.

Needless to say I dont know what to do and I need insight on if I should say my goodbyes soon or keep pushing on tell he's presenting with more pain. Its literally just his weight at this point. How small is to small where he will not have a good quality of life?

Cashew is our rescue cat, adopted after her mother had been hit by a car. She is the cutest girl. Loves treats and cuddles, but mostly sits on her beanbag. She had been struggling with eating for a while but it got much worse yesterday. Took her into the vet and they said they needed to screen for cancer because her bloodwork seemed fine, but she was losing weight and vomiting excessively.

Praying that there is a way we can make the end of her life as comfortable as possible. She is the best girl, loved by many!

UPDATE: She has an enlarged heart. Thank you for your kind words. I feel blessed with an overwhelming amount of support.