| The radiographs were never taken. The vet didn't believe they would show
| us anything new.

But that means they knew what was wrong with him, doesn't it?

(Damned Outlook Express keeps shutting down on me, so I apologize if any of
this comes off short-tempered or irritated.)

From his bloodwork and appearance, all they knew was it was something severe
and liver-related.

| Even the techs realized that he was in trouble, just looking at the test
| results performed in lab. The cat was yellow. The insides of his ears
had
| gone yellow. His third eyelids were yellowed.
| Because of his medical history (as I said), the vet said that fatty
liver
| disease would be the best-case diagnosis.

I'm sorry, but this isn't adding up. The cat was *clearly* jaundiced
already. It really sounds like the vets were simply waiting for HL to
show up as the inevitable complication! In other words, he was already
a serious medical case *before* the clear onset of HL.

And they dumped this guy on you as if he were an ordinary foster?!?

No. He was a surrendered cat who may have had a condition coming into the
shelter. If the owner didn't tell us, we don't know. He spent three weeks in
the isolation room for URI and refusal to eat. When I -offered- to take him,
rather than see him put down, that's all they knew it was. He showed no
signs of anything else. I imagine if bloodwork had been done and elevated
liver values returned, and the vet had considered liver malfunction, my
request to foster him would have been denied.

| I went with what I was being told. People with much more experience in
| making judgement calls on this sort of thing told me what they would do
| in my shoes, what would be best for a suffering cat, and I chose to end
| his suffering. I chose to follow their experience.

I don't get it. Why were you left holding the bag here? They had a
medical case, and you were supposed to decide what to do?

The vet said she prefers to have the input of the foster parent, simply
because there's a greater attachment to an animal you've been housing and
feeding and taking care of for any length of time. The vet gave me her
opinion, and she said that if I didn't feel comfortable making the call, she
would do so. I chose to let him go peacefully, and he did go very quickly.
He had no fight left in him, which is what tells me it was the right choice.

I'm amazed -
and more than a little dismayed - that they didn't clue you in to the
gravity of his condition, the need for strict monitoring and possibly
for extraordinary effort in the short run to pull him through.

As I said, when they let me take him, it was nothing more than chronic URI
and refusal to eat. Shelters see a lot of cats that stop eating for a
variety of reasons, and suffer from depression to boot. The hope was that a
home environment would help. It helped with the URI, which cleared up in
days, with not even a sneeze after two weeks. He ate enough on his own to
make stool, but not quite maintain his weight. It was only in the last
couple of days that he got bad. "Crashed," as it were. I notified the vet
and got him in as soon as she could meet me, and by then he had gone yellow
and started vomiting up whatever I forcefed him.

I think you can save yourself a lot of heartache in the future by making
it clear to these shelter folks that you'd rather have ordinary fosters
to look after rather than serious medical cases.

I don't have the experience necessary to look after medical cases beyond
URI, but I have a knack for getting depressed cats up and about and eating
well again. Those are the ones I tend to take, because those are the ones
that will end up getting seriously ill if they continue to starve
themselves.

I do need to apologize for being snippy, Arjun. I attach very quickly to
cats especially, and I was particularly offended by Megan's assumption that
I caused his condition and the implication that putting him down was an easy
thing to do. I broke down just telling my supervisor what was happening. I
sort of took some of that excess of emotion out on you.