d-day

[arguchik]

so i scheduled (tentatively) the home vet visit for next tuesday (the 8th). scheduling the euthanasia of a cat...it felt very very weird talking to the vet on the phone.

i'm still a little torn. should i wait until jester seems sicker? is it ok to let him go now? what if he puts up a fight when he sees the needle? even if he doesn't, what will it be like to watch the death of an alert, mentally aware animal? what if i'm racked with guilt afterward? should i spend the next week completely spoiling him?

what i need is a dose of resolve. i also need to reassure myself (or be reassured) that i'm doing the right thing.

this is perhaps one of my most annoying traits, as far as i'm concerned. i'm not always indecisive (in fact, i'm not *usually* indecisive)...only when guilt is involved. or death--me having to make a decision to end the life of a fellow creature. even (um...especially?) one i find particularly difficult to live with. i just hate that i am so susceptible to guilt, that it is so paralyzing or anxiety-producing--particularly guilt about some other person or creature's needs that i'm not willing or able to meet. i just imagine this cat looking at me and thinking, "why is she abandoning me?"

Comments

[evacado.livejournal.com]

Yuck yuck. You have a rough job. While I've never been the one to take the pet to it's last visit with the vet, I know it's a very painful thing and an awful decision to make. Knowing he's on death row is hard.
A couple of things to remember:
Your vet is right in saying that he is probably already in some pain. A cancer that invasive has probably wrapped itself around some nerves and is causing some pressure, not to mention disturbing the muscles it's attached to. Cats are uber-stoic. Do you want to wait until he is in so much pain that he actually starts to show it?

It is always, always always better to euthanize too early than too late. The few weeks or months of good life he might have had left are not worth risking even a day of that miserable existence that he might face if you wait too long. Too soon guilt is much better than too late guilt. You're doing the right thing by doing it sooner than later, and by making it a lower stress home visit.

It's sort of like the guilt people have when faced with end-of-life decisions for a family member who may not have been very pleasant. It'd be hard to pull the plug on my nasty, spiteful, backstabbing old aunt because I wouldn't know whether I was doing her a service or exacting my revenge. You just can't extricate that deep negativity enough to make an objective decision.
Most animals know when it's their time. Humans are like that, too. They'll go down fighting, or they'll accept their fate, and you can't do much to change that, but he probably knows what's coming. Cats are perceptive like that.
The look he gives you when he's breathing his last is just what you make it. You can see fear and hatred in his eyes, or you can see a quiet "thank you."
Do what's going to make you feel comfortable. You're going to feel guilt and sadness, and although it sounds coarse, in the end, you're going to be the only one who has to live with it. So if it makes you feel good to spoil him, go for it. You'll know that he had a happy week and might have been happier when he died.
You don't have to stay in the room while the vet administers the injection. Make the decision when you get to that point. You might talk to the vet about a little kitty valium to help keep him calm and happy for his last couple of hours.

Whatever you do, remember that you did the best you could. And he knows that, in his little wierd cat way.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

thank you for the reassurance--about it being better to euthanize too early than too late. i waited too long with my dog, and have always regretted his last 24-48 hours. afterward, the vet who euthanized him (in my apartment in fremont--she's the same vet i called to come euthanize jester) said...once an animal gets a fatal diagnosis, any life she helps them to live after that point is purely for the owner's peace of mind. today on the phone she said it's a completely personal decision (when, how soon, to euthanize), but she said what you said too--he's probably in pain. she *also* said what you said about the valium. just so happens, i have some on hand--the other vet wrote a prescription to cover him for several visits. i have to check to see how much i have.

thanks, too, for mentioning your bitter angry old aunt. lol. everyone has a relative like that... i am *very* worried that i am rushing jester to his end because i am tired of living with him. ask any of my friends who have been around him for more than a few minutes (ask crash, for example): he is a major pain. but i don't want his last days to be bad, or painful, or whatever either. i will say, too...there is some ex-husband "junk" wrapped up with this cat too. my ex spoiled him rotten when he was a kitten, and jester always loved him more than he loved me (they were like peas in a pod), but when we split up my ex wouldn't take him. i ended up with all 3 of our pets (another cat is presumably still alive and living with a former boyfriend in vermont, who also wouldn't keep jester because he couldn't stand him).

today i bought a bunch of little cans of wet cat food--8 different flavors to get us through the week. i also bought a little catnip thingy that the pet food store person swears is the best catnip ever. (she has 3 cats, so i guess she'd know.)

[crash66.livejournal.com]

You are doing the right thing. Let your guilt float away on the river of life, it doesn't belong to you.

I agree with evacado, from what you've described I suspect he's in a good amount of pain. Might explain why he's so crabby.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

yeah...and why he has been puking so much, maybe. thanks for saying so...reassurance helps.

wish i could just do that automatically with guilt (actually, imagining it floating away on a river is really helpful). there's a *lot* of childhood conditioning behind that--i have learned to cope with it a lot better than i used to...but all those years of catholicism and my parents using guilt as their main "motivational tool" take a toll. i'll never get rid of it entirely, but hopefully i can keep learning how to lessen its impact on my life.

[crash66.livejournal.com]

I like to go to windy places and let the air blow through me, taking with it all the negative energy, all the muck, all the guilt. I usually start laughing at myself for hanging onto stuff then i just let it go and it floats away in the breeze.

[marina-82.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear your cat is unwell...It can be hard making these decisions...but you have to think about it this way...if he is in pain then your doing him a favour, and if he isn't in pain now but will be in the future if his cancer gets worse... maybe putting him down is the best thing...i don't know what the right answer is...but I know you should not feel guilty about it...you are doing what's best for him...im sure Jester will know that...hope all will go well...

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

thanks...it really helps to have reassurance from people. very much appreciated!

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

there's a line from Hamlet that I think applies to kitties too:

there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come, if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?

and as far as the guilt goes, you've been patient and loyal to him for...14 years is it?
you don't need to distrust your own feelings or motives for putting him down when the vet says it's time. you might be relieved when it's done, but that doesn't mean you caused it or were somehow disloyal or unkind.

on a slightly other hand, I'm sorry you (and jester) are having to go through that. it's a very sad experience.

[arguchik.livejournal.com]

and that is part of the to be or not to be monologue, yes? god i love hamlet. i think it's my favorite of all shakespeare's plays, tho i also love henry IV (the one gus van sant made into "my own private idaho") and the tempest ("O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beautious mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!"). and of course there's othello and the scottish play...

but hamlet stands out for me. the masterwork. just googled the phrase, and of course the sparrow thing is *not* part of the to be or not to be monologue. but here's that monologue, just because i think everyone should read it occasionally. god...such wisdom in it. i swear, shakespeare is better than the bible.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.