Cat with severe heart disease and CHF - wwyd?

[Balloondog]

Hello all, I need a little advice please as DH and I are far too emotional right now to think straight.

DCat (8ish years old) has been breathing rapid, shallow breaths for almost a month now but despite numerous vet visits we were consistently told there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her and as she hates the vets and blood tests often result in a bloodbath, to just monitor her.

On Saturday night she seemed to be getting worse and just as we decided it was back to the vets first thing in the morning she howled and keeled over panting and drooling, unable to move. We took her straight down to the emergency vets where she was admitted, put in an oxygen tent and fluid drained off her lungs. We were told her heartbeat was irregular and that an X-ray showed her heart to be enlarged. She was discharged with a diuretic tablet and we booked the first available heart scan for her next week. Last night she seemed to be struggling for breath again and this morning we took her down to the emergency vet again. She's been readmitted, oxygen tent again and the scan has shown she has severe heart disease.

The vet called earlier this evening to say she has a maximum of 12 months left to live IF we can get her to take 2 lots of tablets twice a day. There is a chance she could develop a clot which is obviously not good news and this could result in paralysis and she would have to be put to sleep. The alternative he's asked us to consider is to have her PTS sooner rather than later. Neither sounds like a great option to us and thought of losing our darling girl is devastating but we have no experience of whether trying to prolong her life will only be for our benefit not hers. Given that she showed us no signs of being anything less than 100% up until a few weeks ago, I don't have much faith that we can spot if she's suffering unduly but while I don't want her to suffer, I don't want to let her go if we can offer some quality of life for her last few months.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What did you do and do you think you made the right decision? If not, what would you have done differently?

From reading your first post it was the only thing to do.

I'm sorry. You did the kindest thing if she would have been so resistant, it would have been a miserable time for her.
I think in situations like this you know how well your cat can handle things. Our dear old girl was so tolerant and laid back but boy before her was a nightmare to medicate and got so stressed going to the vet.
RIP beautiful cat

So sorry, Balloondog.

Thank you all.

@Toddlerteaplease She was definitely part Persian I think but we never really knew what she was as she was thrown out as the runt of a litter we think. No one would ever have called her sweet; she never grew larger than 2.5kgs but she more than a hundred times the attitude to make up for it! But she was our little feisty monkey. I hope somewhere she and Fatty are chasing chopsticks and a laser pointer and having a wonderful time xx

Fatty would love chasing chopsticks, although she loved plastic thermometer covers that ended up In my pockets from work!