Thoughts on care during life and illness - because of a cat.
It's been 24 hours since I said goodbye to Goldy - I keep thinking I should check on him and then remember. The thing is that for the last four months - really the last 14 years - he was a living thing I took care of. When he got sick I was determined not to have to look back as I've done with my childhood cat Poppy and say "it could have been so different."
My childhood cat Poppyseed died when I was ten, and I had always promised myself - though it ended up taking 30 years - that I'd get another cat. There will be another one later this summer, but not a replacement. Living beings you love don't get replaced.
I gave Goldy a steroid wrapped into a pill pocket twice a day, and an anti nausea pill. We developed new routines, and then there was the tuna fish. Every time there was a change in his behavior, I thought about what to do.
Leena commented that she knew the difference between the jingle of his tags and our dogs'. I knew exactly what she meant, and find myself listening for the jingle, and it's strange to only hear one. He was a part of our household - the girls don't remember our house - until now - without a cat because they were little when we got him.
I thought a lot about life and death while Goldy was sick. And about the ending of a life. Goldy hung on much longer than we thought he would, and in the end I knew that if we'd waited until he didn't seem like Goldy anymore - his personality gone - we'd have waited too long. The ending was painful to see - but I knew when we couldn't give him his pain med or anti nausea med anymore, combined with not eating and or the use of his back legs, it was time. I knew four months ago that he was terminally ill, but final goodbyes are never easy.
The vet was wonderful - we were instantly ushered into a private room, and our vet gave us time in private as well as waiting discreetly in the room. We waited after she gave him the sedative, and then when she checked and his head was sleepy on the table it was time. Time to really say goodbye. I didn't want to see him no longer breathing. I didn't want to remember him that way.
I think that in the end euthanasia is a peaceful, humane way to let go of what you love. I think humans shouldn't be so afraid of when our loved ones get sick. I've thought a lot about what the ending will eventually be like when my father - who's lived with lymphatic leukemia for nearly 20 years - dies. And I also think that sometimes ending the life of a human, rather than waiting for the person's body to finally give up the fight for survival, would be the kinder more loving thing to do.
