Did I prematurely euthanize?????

Vets, may I please have your opinion? I euthanized my cat Friday (my sweet baby girl) and I want to know if I gave up too easily or not. Or if I should have gotten a second opinion….This is going to be long so please bear with me…. She was diagnosed with IBD a year ago. Was chronically vomiting (projectile) daily and sometimes multiple times a day. Gradually lost weight (was 4.9 kg last summer and 3.9 kg on Friday) and appetite gradually declined. Originally responded well to hydrolized protein prescription food a year and a half ago but that eventually stopped working. Then got put on 15 days of steroids (Prednisolone) and tapered down. Still vomited during those 15 days but only 2-3 times vs every single day. After those 15 days though, she was back to vomiting daily again. Got put back on steroids but was put on them daily for about 3 weeks. Unfortunately, she still vomited daily (projectile) while taking the daily steroids. Last week, stopped eating all together and her personality abruptly vanished. Took her to emergency room for animals and they did an ultrasound, lab work, and X ray. Said they saw diffuse inflammation in intestines (IBD I’d imagine) and thickened gastric wall with ulcerations. Radiologist said IBD vs lymphoma at this point. Got sent home on immunosuppressant level steroids and that actually worked and made the vomiting disappear BUT she was only on them for about 2 days before I decided to take her back in again because she was still hardly eating and her personality was still gone despite being on those high dose steroids. They hospitalized her with fluids, NG tube, and then the internal medicine doc at the hospital examined her and did an endoscopy. When he went in with the endoscope, he saw (what’s posted on the pic attached to this post). He said he could biopsy but chances are that the steroids could possibly alter the biopsy and it would come back inconclusive and we’d be back to square one. I opted out of the biopsy at that point and decided to euthanize a few days later at home because he said it’s highly likely this is cancer (plus the fact she was hardly eating, losing weight, and her personality was gone). I am now having guilt and second thoughts and am wondering “could this have been some sort of gastritis???” I never asked the internal med doctor because the thought never occurred to me but surely a specialist would have considered that when looking at her ultrasound results and when performing the endoscopy, right??? Plus, he told me (as well as her primary vet) that focal ulcerations are typically associated with a malignancy. Should I have gotten a second opinion? I’m heartbroken. Thanks for reading.

Hello - and first, please accept a huge virtual hug.  You have lost your cat and you are greiving.  Its perfectly normal to suddenly wake up in the middle of the night or whenever, and be very afraid that you made the wrong choice.  For many, self flagellation is a big, juicy part of the nastiness that is greif and all I can say is hang in there; it does get better than this. More to follow.

Gastritis simply means inflammation of the stomach wall; enteritis is inflammation of the intestines.  IBD is the name of a diagnosis, of which inflammation of the bowel is the main symptom.  If the stomach wall was thickened, there would likely have been gastritis present too - cancer may ha e been the underlying cause of all this.  It sounds to me as though your vet beleives that your cat either had very severe enteritis that wasn't responding to steroids, or cancer.  It sounds as though she was poorly and suffering.  Loosing 1/5 of her body weight in so short a time must have been shocking.  You say that she was down and her personality was gone.  It sounds as though your vets were satisfied that the prognosis was guarded and that euthanasia was a kind thing in this situation.  So no, I don't think it was wrong not to keep on. There is a charity called the Ralph site that supports owners in such awful moments as these - do look them up.  They will tell you about the stages of greif, one of which is the 'bargaining' phase, where your brain keeps looking for reasons why your loved one shouldn't have died.  As I said, this is nornal and eventually, it is followed by acceptance.  Acceptance doesn't make it okay that our loved one is dead, but it means that we can start to live with it.  Meanwhile, you are doing exactly the right thing in trying to satisfy your need to have questions answered.  I send love.