Interesting "My Turn" feature this week in Newsweek about a man who paid over $11,000 in vet bills for his cat Fritz's cancer treatment.

The author, Frederich R. Lynch, a university professor, asks, "How far down the road of high-tech vet care would our pets want us to take them?" Lynch's cat developed a rare cancer associated with a vaccine and the best option in terms of a cure was amputation. Lynch went for the amputation at a cost about about $4,000. However, some later complications followed, and before he knew it, Lynch was looking at a bill for $11,000.


Lynch questions the ethics of spending this kind of money on a cat when there are humans with far greater needs, acknowledging that this cat is not a person.
He is still waiting to see if Fritz beats the odds thanks to the expensive intervention.

I'm not sure what I would do in this situation. I don't underestimate the love and connection that people have with their pets, as I am a pet guardian myself. I guess it would depend on my financial situation at that moment and what the prognosis was for the pet with and without treatment. I would also consider how much pain the treatments would cause the pet.

What do you think? Do you think that paying this kind of money for treatments for a pet is going overboard?


The main source for this article is TheCancerBlog