Saving My Cat: Why No Price Was Too High

I recently paid $11,000 in veterinary bills for my cat, Fritz. I've been hesitant to tell friends about this expenditure, which I know seems extravagant. But after hearing a radio financial guru answer questions from two callers about tapping their 401(k) accounts for veterinary bills, I realized I am not alone.

I knew about soaring human medical costs from the college course I teach on health-care policy. But I was not fully aware of how the same wonderful but costly technologies for prolonging human life are also revolutionizing veterinary care. American pet guardians spend more than $20 billion annually on health care for their furry pals. Our pets now have access to many of the same restorative medical treatments as do humans. Dogs with ticker problems may qualify for a $3,000 pacemaker. A guardian of a cat with renal failure may opt for a feline kidney transplant, at about $8,000.

The question is, how far down the road of high-tech vet care would our pets want us to take them? Humans understand that medical treatments enhance and prolong life. But would our pets, having no concept of death, want to endure the same medical procedures that most humans would choose? I had to act as if I knew.

Fritz and I fell into the vortex of advanced veterinary medicine when he developed a statistically rare soft-tissue cancer associated with the feline-leukemia vaccine. He'd wandered into my life 11 years earlier, an abandoned orange tabby. I'd just lost my 16-year-old Himalayan cat to kidney disease. I wasn't ready for another, much less a stray. But Fritz had a remarkable personality radiating from golden eyes that were almost human.

"A dog in a cat suit," declared my long-time vet, noting Fritz's remarkable attentiveness to humans as she gave him his first vaccinations. "Sometimes they find you, not vice versa."

Several years later, a cancerous lump was discovered at the injection site of his vaccinations. The local vets removed it, then seemed unsure about what to do next. I began my own extensive research. A friend pointed me to a professional veterinary Web site devoted to research on vaccine-induced cancer, but its conclusions were grim: a 600-day average survival period. The best possible chance of cure: amputation.