Poorly cat with liver disease

[MissTakexxx]

Our lovely 8 yr old cat has been diagnosed with liver disease and is currently an inpatient at the vets. He's having lots of tests done and has a liver biopsy in the next few days to see what's the best treatment for him.

I'll do everything I can for him (he belongs to ds1) but I'm reeling at the cost of the vets bills which continue to mount up every day. By tomorrow, they'll be over £2,000 - which is more than triple what I've spent on our annual holiday this year. I don't have any pet insurance and we have another cat who is due a more minor operation in the next couple of days too - more expense.

Does anyone else have a cat who's survived and thrived after being diagnosed with liver disease? Are there likely to be more huge vet bills to come, even if they can find the right treatment for him (steroids if it's one kind of liver disease but I'm not sure what else if it's a different variety of disease)?

My top priority is to make sure our cat is pain free and well - for his sake and also the sake of my DCs who want me to do everything to make sure our cat gets better. However, I'm struggling with so much medical intervention for our pet when we couldn't and wouldn't afford private medicine for a human family member and this is really going to cut into our family finances. I'm a single mum and we rely solely on my income.

I think I need to know that this is the right thing to do and that short-term suffering for our cat - who can't be happy being stuck in a small cage at the vets, having blood tests, medications, procedures etc - for over a week - will lead to longer term benefits for him. Do cats like him recover and go on to have full and healthy/happy lives so that all the scary vets fees are definitely worthwhile?

To complicate matters, we're off on the annual family holiday at the end of next week and have a cat sitter coming in twice a day, briefly, to feed the cats. I'm worried about how this will go if our poorly cat is still ill and needs lots of nursing and also to be given tablets. We won't have mobile reception or internet where we're going, except occasionally - so in an emergency, it'll be difficult for her to get in touch with me.

Will our poorly cat be OK in time before we go away and what on earth am I going to do if he's not? DCs have waited all year for our one holiday and I won't get our money back if I cancel.

Has anyone got reassuring stories to share about their own cat with liver disease? I really need to hear some positives right now.

No advice about the liver disease but could you put him in a cattery instead? They maybe happy to give medication and can keep a closer eye on him.

I'm a vet. I would hate the thought of one of my clients worrying about enormous bills. I would say to your vet exactly what you have just posted here. Sounds as if the vets are performing five-star interventions and diagnostics. That's appropriate in many cases, especially when animals are insured, but where funds are limited (ie most people) there are "three-star" options too. If the prognosis is likely to be poor, there is also the option of euthanasia. Not necessarily in your case, but it has to be on the table too.

Thanks for the replies. Well our cat is now back home since last night and I'm a bit confused and reeling from the bill (around £1,500!!!!).

At first, they's told me they really needed a liver biopsy to see what kind of liver disease he had. If he had one kind, then they would treat it with steroids. If he had a different kind, they'd do something else.

So they couldn't do the biopsy as his blood wasn't clotting properly. So they planned a second scan and to take fluids from his abdomen which they said would tell us a lot more about what was going on and was really important to do.

Each day I was on the phone to the vets to get a report of his progress and whether or not he was well enough to have various things done. Yesterday was supposed to be the day he had the second scan but then they called to say they'd need to sedate him this time, as he was too lively and well to scan without sedation. He was eating better, responding to antibiotics and a drug called Desperit that helps the passage of bile and he was acting much better. This is 11 days after being an inpatient.

So they said maybe we don't bother with the scan. You can take him home and give him his meds. The good news is that he's home and acting so much better. However, I don't understand how it's gone from "he may have liver cancer but even if not, we need to take a liver biopsy or at least a second scan and we can't treat him properly until we really know exactly what kind of liver disease he has" - to - "he seems so much better on his meds. that you can take him home and no urgent need for biopsy, scan or considering steroids".

We now have a shaved little cat - with half his side shaved so close, there's a red sore patch where they shaved into the skin and with a massive sore on his forepaw where apparently the drip was put in I think and he didn't heal properly. He's still very skinny but he's behaving in his usual active, pushy, purring way and eating better.

I can't get him to take his tablets easily except putting them inside bits of chicken, although I was persuaded to buy some expensive paste from the vets to put the tablets in. He won't go near that!

I now need to decide what to do when we go away, as the cat sitter won't find it easy to get him to take his tablets and any chicken I leave in the fridge will go off after a couple of days, so she can't use that method.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure whether he should have been an inpatient for that long at all. He was stuck in a small cage for 11 days with dogs barking beside him, clinical smells, scary interventions and none of his familiar environment. They even gave him the wrong food, after I'd specifically asked them to keep him on his usual food.

I daren't think about the eye watering bill. I daren't think about his future expenses. I still don't understand how the vets opinion went from "this is a really sick cat and we need to do everything to find out exactly what's wrong so we can give him the right treatment" to "he seems to be doing so well, he's therefore unlikely to have cancer or need any more interventions right now or steroids. Take him home"?

£1,500 seems very reasonable to me. One of mine was at the vets for 6 days and the bill was £5000!

I was actually thinking that Toddler. Harry was in for 2 nights and the bill was £1900!

OP, I hope your cat is ok. It might be worth making a list of questions you have for the vet and asking them to go through them with you.

I have a cat with liver disease diagnosed via a blood test after I noticed he was more lethargic than usual. Vet recommended basically doing nothing other than giving a sachet of a supplement to add to his food. They just said liver disease is very hard to treat, doing any investigation was likely to lead to bleeding. He is doing OK (this was probably over a year ago) but knows when we add stuff to his food so doesn't even take that! I think his lifespan will be shorter than normal but he does not seem to be suffering at the moment so we continue to keep an eye on him.