Namechanger here because I'm worried about getting a verbal kicking for even thinking this.
Our cat's been ill for some time, over a month now. We took him to the vet's and despite antibiotics, steroids, 2 blood tests, xray's and a 2nd opinion from another vet in the same practice, they still don't have a clue what the problem is.
Basically he was fine one day then the next day he was walking like he'd hurt his leg and/or drunk. Now as time as gone on, he's now refusing to eat, move and only drinks water. We've force fed him a few times so high calorific food but that's not a long term plan. He's lost so much weight he's practically skin & bones.
The problem is that the vet is now out of ideas and has referred us to a specialist. The specialist can see him at the end of the week but it's £100 for the initial consult followed by between £1000-£2000 for initial treatment depending on what it is.
Now here is our dilemma. We've already spent over £500 on vet bills. An amount I'm hoping the pet insurance will pay out for. I say hoping as it's a recent policy we took out and I'm concerned they may try to argue they wont pay out until they know whats wrong. And if later we do find out, they may argue whatever it is, may have been preexisting prior to the policy even if we didn't know or the cat never showed symptoms. I've never claimed on pet insurance before but I tend to err on the side of caution with all insurance companies. Finally the policy has a £3k limit which at the time seemed more than enough cover.
The cat's miserable. He can't eat, can barely walk and is clearly suffering. We can't afford £1000-£2000 and there's not even a guarantee at the end of that they can figure out what's wrong. Or maybe at the end of that they can't even do anything for the cat.
So...AIBU to be considering asking the vet to put the cat to sleep? At what point is enough enough? I'm gutted even thinking about it. We all love the cat but he's clearly suffering and financially it's getting scary when times are so tough and whilst we're not on the breadline, neither can we just conjure up £2k.