My cat doesn't need a new kidney, thank you

Every transplant requires a willing donor, and how can a cat read and sign the necessary disclaimer form?

As she was getting ready for bed yesterday, my cat informed me that she didn't want a kidney transplant. She'd rather have a nose job. "But Meg,'' I protested, "There's nothing wrong with your nose. I think it's cute and, more to the point, so does Oscar.''

Oscar is her gentleman caller from next door who sneaks through the cat flap every evening to polish off what is left of the Whiskas. "I've got a horrid nose,'' replied Meg, critically regarding her tortoiseshell reflection in the mirror. "I'd prefer a Roman nose like Audrey Hepburn's moggie in Breakfast at Tiffany's.''

Enough of this anthropomorphic whimsy. I do talk to my cat and she meows back, her voice pitched at various levels suggesting surprise, irritation, contentment or fury, but that's as far as it goes. She's getting on; I think she's about 16. But, touch wood, her kidneys seem to be OK. When by mistake she is locked into a room she pees in the fireplace. But I dare say I would too, in similar circumstances.

If she were to become incontinent and the vet advised that it was her kidneys, I would not fork out £8,000 for a kidney transplant (available only in London and Edinburgh, apparently, at the moment) even if I had eight grand going spare. I love Meg but there are limits to love.

I should like to tell you that I am outraged by the ever widening gulf between rich and poor, the First World and the Third. In my imagination I see myself banging my fist on the table and asking an admiring audience how civilisation as we know it can possibly survive when a doctor in Kazakhstan who earns $20 a month reads about someone in Edinburgh paying £8,000 for their cat to undergo a kidney transplant. Alas I cannot. I subscribe to the school of thought that reckons you can spend your money as you choose providing it doesn't hurt anyone. Animals, they say, have different pain thresholds to us. But try telling that to a cat coming round from its post-operation anaesthetic.

Incidentally, the Royal Veterinary College doesn't approve of kidney transplants for cats. Nothing to do with cruelty or the success of the treatment – it's the ethical consideration which reads thus: every organ transplant requires a willing donor and how can a cat read and then sign the necessary disclaimer form?

Pet-loving loonies addicted to Beatrix Potter will no doubt tell you that their cats can read and play chess and speak French but let's get real. The issue here is neither financial nor ethical; it's just another example of the refusal by a lot of people to accept that everything, yoghurt, pets and, yes, even people have a sell-by date.

If you've got to go you've got to go – an adage that applies equally to cats locked in rooms with inviting fireplaces, cats with dodgy kidneys and people pushing 90 who complain to their MP that there's a two-year waiting list for triple by-pass surgery.

My late ex-stepgrandmother-in-law, which is, to say, my first husband's grandfather's third wife, had a pacemaker put into her chest when she was 70, with the result that, instead of pegging out after her allotted span, her heart ticked on good as new for another 15 years while the rest of her body and what was left of her mind disintegrated. Fortunately she was very, very rich and could afford a suite in a five-star nursing home surrounded by her own Hepplewhite furniture and Lowry originals. In the end I became accustomed to her thinking I was the barmaid in Coronation Street when I went to visit. Her only interest in life was TV soaps.

"Just wait 'til you're an OAP with a dicky heart," I hear you murmur, "or a dysfunctional kidney." I met someone recently whose 75-year-old husband had just been donated a kidney by his 20-year-old son. Instead of a living will, I should like to put it on record that when I'm 70 plus, even though my children will be approaching middle age, I do not want a hand-me-down kidney from any of them. Their need is greater than mine.

As for Meg, when her kidneys start playing up and she becomes incontinent as ageing moggies do, I shall buy her a pair of those special plastic pants you see advertised in Saga magazine next to stairlifts and group bookings for Bombay Dreams.

Meg has just read this and declared she wouldn't be seen dead in plastic pants. When she gets to that stage she wants a one-way ticket to Geneva and a lethal cocktail. Good girl, Meg. Sign here please.