Years ago I had a sick elderly cat I took to the vet, and the vet did a very gentle exam and then said, "There's a lot I could do *to* her, but not a lot I can do *for* her." This is still the most useful framework I've found for thinking about this stuff.

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This was not a neglected cat. We’d kept him alive and mostly comfortable for three years with some pretty intensive treatments. It was time to let off.

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I could tell the medical student I was talking to was frustrated by my willingness to remain in the dark about what exactly was killing my cat. But it was clear the cat was dying anyway, and the biopsy itself would have been more invasive than I was open to. It was time for palliative care.

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It was either cancer, and he was too frail to undergo cancer therapies; or an internal injury that required surgery, ditto, he’d had multiple surgeries at that point and it was brutal; or it was an infection that required antibiotics. I said let’s just give him antibiotics and hope for the best.

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I appreciate this approach of the dentist’s. Our previous cat had a bunch of medical issues in the 3 years leading to his death. In one of the last rounds, the veterinary hospital wanted to do a biopsy to explore something in his stomach. In conversation with them, I realized I didn’t want to know.>

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