Lap of love came today

Made the call to euthanize my sweet kitty Archie today. Not sure how old he was since I adopted him as a senior kitty a year and a half ago. Anywhere between 9-13 (his vets could never quite agree). It was hard because we didn’t have a single confirmed terminal diagnosis—it’s more like nothing on his body seemed to want to work. He’d been rushed to the emergency vet with urinary tract blockages, then had to be hospitalized with borderline liver failure a few months later. Then his thyroid crapped out (manageable with meds), then chronic vomiting and diarrhea— which were only slightly responsive to steroids.

I’m annoyed at our vet, who was pressuring me for another hospitalization, more tests and biopsies, to figure out whether the vomiting and weight loss were cancer or something else (severe IBD, pancreatitis). I decided it was time to stop torturing him instead and let him go. But I feel bad. Like I what if the next intervention…or the next one…would have cured him and given him back like he was before?