<prompt> Human: Hi all,Throwaway account. My cat is an old cat almost 16 years old with cancer. It took a lot of tests to get a diagnosis and weve spent close to 5,000 already. The cancer is one that has a decent success rate two years survival time and quality of life during and after treatment should be good. Treatment of radiation therapychemo therapy would be over 12,000. I have spoken to the oncologist. This would be at a University hospital and theyd take very good care of him.This cat has been with me since he was a baby. Hes a really sweet cat. I love him very, very much and I cant imagine not going ahead with treatment.Financially we can absorb this, though we may need to take money out of our emergency fund. We paid the 5,000 vet bill by not putting money into emergency fund savings for the last few months. We currently have 3 months expenses in our emergency fund and 12 a month expenses in a discretionary savings fund.I have cancelled several discretionary purchases trips to visit family, new furniture, etc.. We will be putting off putting extra money in our retirement account we already max out our 401ks and have matching; we were going to put money into an IRA too -- putting that on hold.So, we can pay for treatment fairly easily. But. I dont know that well always have the high level of income we currently have. In fact, most assuredly we will not. We are able to even consider this treatment due to our high incomes, but there is ageism in my husbands industry and in 10 years he will likely be making much less than hes currently making.I am really torn about going ahead with treatment. I feel like we can do it and hes a family member and the treatment is something he can tolerate and will likely do well with. We would spend the money on trips and furniture, otherwise. My husband would never make this choice himself but hes not going to stop me, since he knows how much this cat means to me.But, that means that my kids wont see their grandparents and cousins this year. That means that we will end up buying furniture anyway in a year or two. That means we might have to touch our emergency fund. Also, we have another sweet, loving old cat 13 years old and wed probably want to go all out if anything should happen to that that cat -- which it most probably will in the next 2-3 years.Any thoughts or words of wisdom, PF?  <response>: Did you ask your vet what they would do if it were their cat? A good one will be straight forward and honest.I recently had to put down a cat we had for 21 years. He was a good boy and friend and I miss him daily. We took him to the vet when he was 18 and he had a build up of uric crystals. We asked the vet what he would do in that situation and he said to go with surgery and other than being old he was very healthy.We had him another 3 years. At the end he had cancer and some neurological disorders but we still didnt want to let him go. Again we asked what we should do and what the vet would do and he said he would enjoy the time he had left and put him down when he was ready. It worked out exactly like that.Maybe we just found a very good vet?16 is old for a cat. Cancer and the treatments arent going to be easy to go through. The financial burden is never really a consideration for me. I feel like since I decided to take them into my family they are my responsibility in the same way a child would be. I have to provide for medical care and that goes without question.So for me it would come down to this...Is it worth it to my pet? Will the suffering provide for more time and good time? Will they benefit from more time or am I trying to keep them here for myself?Again though the opinion of a trusted vet can go a long way to helping with that decision. I wish you luck and Im sorry you are at this point in your pets life.When I look back at my pets lives I feel that they generally had the best little lives they could have had and got to experience as much happiness as they could. I made them safe and comfortable and happy all of their days. In the end what more could they ask for? 