Family emergency

TLDR: Family emergency. Not Covid. Situation has stabilized. Backlogged on messages & email. I'm SLOWLY catching up.

To my fellow Financial Planners & Advicers:

If you don’t understand your clients’ needs for pet insurance or pets’ end of life planning / clients’ end of life planning re: their pets, please do some learning or kindly post a referral request for someone who does. Is there CE on this? Hannah Moore, CFP® spoke on this a bit in the Externship, but I haven’t seen anything formalized. If you have seen some, please share!

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On Thursday morning, our 14 year old tuxedo kitty (white chest) had a medical emergency: vomiting white foam. After days of being poked & prodded, poisoning was ruled out, stroke, renal failure, thyroid, diabetes, a few other diseases that are a blur to me now. Nevertheless, NO conclusion! 4 of his organs are “enlarged”, so possibility of cancer. Testing for this requires an invasive procedure w/ NO GUARENTEE of conclusive results. Procedure will be hard on this “senior” [ages 11-14], almost “super senior” / “geriatric” [ages 15-25] family member. [according to American Assn of Feline Practitioners. Decades ago, age 7 was a “senior”, but is now just “middle-aged”. ] On the 1st day, he looked like he was knocking on Death's door. By Saturday morning, his appetite & energy were back. He was able to jump onto the warm dryer, & vocalized his displeasure for being forced to stay inside for so long.

We came up w/ a plan that is minimally invasive. We ok-ed the tests that would give us info about any needs for specific supplements or changes in his diet. [Already on wet food, grain free, by-product free, junk free. Small portions. Hot water added to heat up his refrigerated wet food & provide even more hydration.]  

The family had the conversation we were putting off: under what conditions would we step in to end his suffering? All 3 of us decision makers have a different way of communicating. As w/ money stories, our beliefs & expectations are often rooted in what we’ve already experienced, usually while growing up. We knew which of us gets the most overwhelmed & has the hardest time articulating their feelings & their reasoning under distress. Yet they are the one who will check on kitty multiple times throughout the night & endure through multiple scratches, even while another person is trying to hold down his paws w/ a towel… to administer meds or syringes of water into his mouth. We made sure to ask them first so they will not feel pressured into going along w/ the others’ opinions.

Next was the “realistic” one... not trying to be an a-hole, but still coming off that way. Each time they brought up kitty’s age or the financial cost of treatment, we wanted to smack them upside the head for repeating these known facts. It felt insensitive. It felt uncaring.

I lived w/ cats & dogs since age 8, so we had over a dozen furry bundles of joy who enriched our lives, & we witnessed leaving this world. I realized that the end-of-life conversation for people (Daddy) are similar:

• Based on his current condition, what will his life look like after this episode?
• Are we reacting from our own selfishness… for wanting more time w/ him?
• If his life continues, what will have to happen?... Will the process of attempting to prolong his life (which is not guaranteed) actually be torturous to him?

Don’t ignore your feelings or another person’s feelings. Do not repress them or dismiss them. Our feelings give us information. Use your logical reasoning to decipher what your mind & body are telling you about the situation.

As I said, kitty is back to acting like his usual feisty self. Even the vet was surprised, on Monday, at the HUGE difference from the 1st day. We’re smothering him w/ more cuddles than he’d like & watching him more closely w/ the help of our outside security cameras. He loves having the freedom to “patrol his territory”. For me, it has been a rollercoaster of being calm, decisive, & logical, then totally drained, anxious, mental mush. Sleep is still erratic. Heart rate is still higher than normal. So the stress of it all is still in my body. Working on some more self-care (massage, cat naps, giving myself permission) so I can continue to take care of my loved ones.   

Pet insurance is something we all could use more education on. I'm far from an expert. Here are some estimates of out-of-pocket costs & considerations based on my Google search:

• emergency vet / animal hospital visit, including 1 day of testing, $500 - $1,000. May need 2 or 3 days of testing.
• transfer pet to an overnight facility to be observed by veterinary professionals & then transferred back to the vet / day animal hospital for more testing, $1,500
• surgery, $800 - $6,000 
• alternative treatments: pet massage, acupuncture, water therapy