New Member, New Problem

Greetings, all.

My girlfriend's cat, which she adopted a little over a year ago, was just diagnosed with liver failure a few hours before I posted this. He is about 5 years old, and stopped eating regularly about a month ago. At first the vet said it may just be him being finicky, but over the weekend he became very lethargic, and would growl in pain when he was picked up. We ended up force-feeding him Nutri-cal yesterday, and she made it into the vet with him today.

Word from the vet is, it was caused by the stress of her recent move. Needless to say, my girlfriend is devestated (I'm not too happy either...I'm a dog person, but I really liked the cat.) The vet says he would have died already if we hadn't done the nutri-cal. As is, the only chance is force-feeding and an IV. Even then, the prognosis is 15%

Has anyone out there gone through this? Part of the biggest problem is the cost. She can't afford more than a week of the medicine, and we have no idea how long it would take for him to snap out of it. Of course, with 15%, we don't know he will. It's a terrible moral dilemma, I think. Some cats can be completely cured, but we don't know if it will happen. And I don't know what kind of quality of life he will have. Does liver failure put him in severe pain, even if he is being kept alive?

Advice, please! Where do you draw the line? How long do you try to keep him alive waiting for him to be cured? When does trying to keep him alive for his sake become prolonging his life for your sake? And how do I help my girlfriend make the decision? She looks at him like a child...she has said he is the best cat she's ever had. She's only had him for a year, and she feels like she has failed him. I want the cat to get better, but I also don't want her to drive herself to bankruptcy or into depression trying to keep him alive when it's a poor prognosis.

Thanks for your suggestions, and I hope that I this thread doesn't have to move...