Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Really need advice/opinions ASAP

Hey Guys,

Ok, I really hope you guys can help me because I'm not being rational and I need some advice/opinions here.

For those of you who read my other posts...my cat may be sick and this is really stressing me out. I had a long conversation with his vet today who said that the intitial fecal didn't show anything, and that since he hasn't made any improvement yet on the drug that we gave him he thinks further investigation is warranted.

My boyfriend disagrees because the cat "seems" fine...he's eating well, running around and playing and generally in good spirits. However, according to the vet that's not at all uncommon and he thinks more needs to be done.

What he wants to do first is run a better fecal which would be done at an off-site lab that would run slides and check for bacteria, parasites and other things that coudl also make US sick. He said that's the most important step because we don't want us getting sick too. He said he'd also want to do bloodwork to check and make sure nothing funny shows up there.

Beyond that, if still nothing shows up, he would suggest an ultrasound to check for lymphoma and an surgical biopsy of the intestine to check for IBD. Obviously these things are going to be expensive. The vet didn't advise waiting because he said although its' a small chance, lymphoma is a possibility and if caught early, our cat would have a good chance at survival but if left, he would die.

BF thinks that because we can't afford it right now we should just take a wait and see approach, and it's hard to argue that when the cat seems so healthy. Really, the only thing that's wrong with him is that his stools don't look or smell right. Other than that he seems fine. I told BF I'd be willing to wait until the course of medication was done to see if there was any improvement (which the vet said wouldn't be unreasonable) but at that point I'd want to proceed with further testing.

Here's the kicker...we have insurance, and pretty much all of the vet's considerations are covered, so if he is sick we'd get most of our money back. If however, he's just got IBS or something (go figure) than we'd be out potentially a couple thousand dollars.

I just don't know what to do...and I hate that now I'm arguing with bf about it. The way I figure it, we're not the experts, the vet is...and if he thinks we shouldn't leave it and more needs to be done than it seems to me that's what we should do. However, I also see bf's point in that the cat seems perfectly fine.

Please help me...I don't know what to do. I know if I leave it and it turns out to be something serious and he dies because we didn't catch it sooner, I'd probably never forgive BF. I also know that if we go ahead with testing and it turns out to be nothing...BF is going to be mad at me

I'm so lost, really any opinions/advice would be really great
Thanks,
Kelly

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