the Cost of a Cat

My family cat of 19+ years recently passed; for the past (and last) 5 years, 7 months, ~22 days of her life she was in my care.

I worked from home this entire time and in the late-life stages I even turned down work in other cities or away from home for too long, because of its perceived adverse effects on her health. I’m also convinced that working from home allowed me to take greater care of her than if I held down a steady job; my morning routines evolved to adopt to her needs, involving medications, sun-soaking light shifts, and aiding her to the litter (next paragraph more on that). I made sure she had a pleasant late-life, and am pretty sure my loving care extended her life a little bit. She was happy and healthy, right up until the very last day – that final day was sad, but it can’t compare to the literally thousands of days of joy she gave me and the world.

It didn’t dawn on me for some time after I became her primary caregiver, to keep track of costs and receipts. I was curious, even then (early/mid-2011), what was the cost? And that’s a loose question, because the numbers below don’t take into account a lot of costs, like cat sitters, paper towels for cleaning up (I should have bought stock in Bounty I was using so many paper towels already!), some missing receipts no doubt, lost wages from days off work when she was sick, diapers and accessories, laundromat expenses to clean soiled linens (the last 2+ years she was urine-incontinent), and then-some. I mean lots of hidden costs.

But here’s the breakdown – these are just receipts from my two veterinarians:

2011	309.10
2012	453.20
2013	1,027.00
2014	2,079.11
2015	1,521.99
2016	556.97

In 2016 she passed on April 22 at 5:25pm; that final day alone was a $200+ day in expenses.

It’s an amazing thing to consider, the cost of a pet.

I mean that 2014 year was rough; in 2013 she was diagnosed with 1st stage kidney failure and hyperthyroid, soÂ in 2014 she had a great number of rough days and sudden trips to the vet, to establish a balance in blood pressure, check for urine infections, evaluate her hyperthyroid, and more. I mean some days it seemed like I was at the vet once a week, for something.

In May 2015 I honestly thought she was near the end. But she had an amazing bounce-back and went nearly a whole another year – for that I was blessed with some really great snuggle time.

If you go back to 2011 and 2012, the cost per day was only around $1! But in 2014 the cost was nearly $6/day, and like I say with hidden costs probably nearly double that.

In the end, our time together costed me $5,947.37, or around $3.07/day; but I’d pay $1,000,000 to get her back if that was humane – she was the most awesome cat I’ve ever known (and done laundry with), a truly unique critter creature – our time together was priceless.

These are just a few shots, mostly from the days and months before she passed – she used to a 14lb. big lady, but late in life I thinned her up to ~6lbs. for the betterment of her health.

Dang I miss her…