We have a 14-year-old neutered male cat, black.

He's been as good a pet as one could imagine and for most of his life he had
zero health problems.

For the last three or four years or so, though, he has developed a problem
of defecating outside his box, and in particular on things that happened to
be lying around in the floor.

We thought this was a behavioral problem and took all the usual approaches,
it got to where it became an infrequent event although never completely
disappeared.

A couple of years ago, we noticed that the cat began losing weight. He was
11 pounds at tops, a really fine feline specimen, then sort of gradually
started getting skinnier, down into the 7-8 pound range.

The thing was, though, he was eating pretty much constantly at the same time
he was losing weight.

Our vet suggested thyroid problems, but he tested negative for those.

Within the last six months, though, things have gone downhill fast. He has
lost down to six pounds, even though he still eats continuously, enough to
where he ought to weigh 25 pounds. He also defecates continuously, to where
he pretty much fills up a litter box in a day. He's also pretty much lost
control as far as going outside the box, he's to the point of ruining
things. He's also taken to urinating on things, in particular carpet. For
instance, there's a carpet right near his box, we'd see him go to the carpet
and squat and not even look at his box.

We recently took him to the vet and they ran bloodwork on him and again, the
thyroid (which was my first thought) turned out normal, but his liver
function tests were way out of whack, really bad.

My vet consulted with an internist in another, larger city and the internist
suspects lymphoma, even though that's supposed to make a cat anorexic by not
eating and as I said, this cat would eat as long as you put it down for him,
he's just not getting the nutrients and is basically down to skin and bones,
his coat looks terrible and he just sits and looks at you with these big,
pleading eyes.

My vet suggested that we go see this internist and have an ultrasound done
to confirm a diagnosis. My vet could do a surgical biopsy, but says he
doesn't know if the cat could handle it.

The internist is 80 miles away. And I'm a professional journalist who makes
my living with words, but I cannot put into words how badly this cat
travels, even since he was a kitten. We have to give him Valium just to take
him across town to get his shots, if we don't he invariably urinates,
defecates and vomits all over his carrier and one time his heartbeat got so
fast from traveling that he was to the point of having a coronary.

If this cat has lymphoma, we're not going to take any heroic measures to try
to prolong his life, will probably go ahead and euthanize him. Some of it is
financial considerations, but basically, this cat was a stray kitten that my
sister-in-law picked up on the side of the road, we took him in and we've
given him 14 years of life he probably would never have had, and it's been a
good life, and we're not inclined to torment him with chemo, etc., to buy
him a little more time when the end result will probably be the same.

The thing is ... we don't know if we want to take this cat on this 80-mile
journey either, because unless we stone him to the point of unconsciousness,
it's going to be torment for him as well, and if it is lymphoma we probably
will not bring him home.

But at the same time, you always wonder that it might not be lymphoma, that
it might be something else that could be treated or might be behavioral,
although his weight loss certainly wouldn't be behavioral, and you wonder if
you go ahead and have him put down, if there would be something you could've
done.

We've just got to do something, because he's wasting away before our eyes
and is ruining the house with defecation.

My wife especially is concerned that he's suffering. He doesn't appear to be
in pain, but eating and defecating constantly could certainly qualify as
suffering in some quarters. It's not much of a life.

I know there's no right answer for this, but I personally am kind of at a
loss for this because I've not had to deal with this, I've lost pets before
but it was always through accidents.

Can anybody give me any input? Would you subject this cat to this tortuous
trip, knowing that there's a strong possibility of what the end result will
be, just to cling to that last vestage of hope, or go ahead and let him go?

FYI, we have another cat who's also 14 but is in perfect health, acts like a
kitten, so we would not be without a cat in our house, although this would
be a crushing loss for us and our kids.

Thanks in advance for any help.