How much is a good cat worth?

Wordle 538 5/6

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Dropping the kid off yesterday was uneventful. Work was fairly routine. Two meetings, one which required note-taking, one which required attention and could have required work but it turned out not to. 

The big issue is the cat. The emergency vet said he responded well to treatment over the previous night but still recommended surgery. It seems possible but not certain that his bladder stone will resolve itself. (Maybe even not likely? Can't be sure.) We had three options to get it scheduled: with them for $5,000 (and there may have been other problems too - thanks but no thanks), with the usual vet for about $2,000 but the earliest option was in January (if he needs it at all, he could be dead by then - no thanks), or with a vet way out in Manassas for $1,500 but even they didn't have any openings before the day we're scheduled to fly to California for the holidays. So we made the appointment with them but aren't sure if we'll go through with it or, if so, how we'd arrange to get him home from there. 

I'm concerned about the expense, of course, but we can afford it, it's not more than we already spent on the initial emergency, and it may be both necessary and sufficient to get him healthy (not sure yet). T.'s parents were diplomatic and sympathetic but fairly clear that they wouldn't go to that expense. My parents seemed more open to the idea but still were hesitant. T. is leaning towards her parents.

The timing of this is maddening. If he had this problem any time in April or May or August through October, we probably never would have noticed until he had a seizure or something in the front yard or even just died. That would have sucked but at least it would have been cheaper and there would have been certainty about it. $8,000 or euthanasia? We'd have been very sad but taken the second option. If this had happened January through March, after our trip, we could have done the bare minimum and monitored things ourselves indefinitely. But it's happening less than two weeks before we're traveling, so we have to figure out how to make the pet care work around the travel, and hope we get it right. 

At this point we're likely to monitor him closely for the next few days, cancel the appointment if everything seems OK, and just direct the cat-sitter to take extra care. There may be no more problems at all now that the initial problem was dealt with and he's on a new diet. So far, knock on wood, things seem to be going well - eating the new prescription food, not leaking, etc.

He's a great cat! Friendly, a lot of personality, and clean and low-maintenance until a week ago. At 11, he still probably has many happy years ahead of him if this problem is resolved. But has it been already resolved? Will the surgery do it and make things normal again? Or is he going to be incontinent in another 3 weeks or months and have to go through this all over again?

Back to day-to-day stuff... dinner was tilapia, which I haven't made in a while, and a salad from the store. T. put the kid to bed, with difficulty, while I worked on a few Christmas cards.