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mamajoanMy friends Laura and Ariana, the best Worldcon-attending-buddies ever, are having their kitty Dominic put to sleep later today. :( I've met him several times and he is a very sweet kitty. But he's also old, and has been in poor health for a while. Here's a picture of Dominic.
Making the decision to euthanize is probably the hardest thing a pet lover ever has to do. No matter how sick the kitty is, you're always going to wonder: "did I make the decision too soon? Maybe he would have bounced back. I thought he was trying to tell me it was time, but maybe I misunderstood." That guilt is so hard to shake, because you've taken on this ultimate power to end a life, and it's the life of something you loved for many years, so it's just so painful to make the decision. And you can tell yourself over and over, "she had a good life ... she loved us, and she knew we loved her," and you know that it's part of the responsibility you incur when you take a cat into your home and your life, but knowing all that doesn't make it hurt any less. It's just hard.
It's especially hard with cats because they are so private about their pain. A cat doesn't like to let you know that it is hurting, so in many cases, by the time you realize something's wrong, it's REALLY wrong -- maybe even too late to do anything about it. So you get the extra guilt of thinking you should have noticed sooner, and of wracking your brain trying to remember whether the cat threw up or acted weird or did anything that might have been a sign. And it's so hard to forgive yourself, to say "no, there's no way I could have known."
By the way, I used to think it was wrong to say "put to sleep" because I thought of it as a euphemism designed to disguise the true nature of what you're doing, sort of like "collateral damage." But then I learned that the drug they use for the process actually does induce a deep sleep that just stops the animal's heart, so the term "put to sleep" is actually accurate and I feel okay about using it.
OK, that was depressing. Sorry. I'll try to post something cheerier in a little while.
Making the decision to euthanize is probably the hardest thing a pet lover ever has to do. No matter how sick the kitty is, you're always going to wonder: "did I make the decision too soon? Maybe he would have bounced back. I thought he was trying to tell me it was time, but maybe I misunderstood." That guilt is so hard to shake, because you've taken on this ultimate power to end a life, and it's the life of something you loved for many years, so it's just so painful to make the decision. And you can tell yourself over and over, "she had a good life ... she loved us, and she knew we loved her," and you know that it's part of the responsibility you incur when you take a cat into your home and your life, but knowing all that doesn't make it hurt any less. It's just hard.
It's especially hard with cats because they are so private about their pain. A cat doesn't like to let you know that it is hurting, so in many cases, by the time you realize something's wrong, it's REALLY wrong -- maybe even too late to do anything about it. So you get the extra guilt of thinking you should have noticed sooner, and of wracking your brain trying to remember whether the cat threw up or acted weird or did anything that might have been a sign. And it's so hard to forgive yourself, to say "no, there's no way I could have known."
By the way, I used to think it was wrong to say "put to sleep" because I thought of it as a euphemism designed to disguise the true nature of what you're doing, sort of like "collateral damage." But then I learned that the drug they use for the process actually does induce a deep sleep that just stops the animal's heart, so the term "put to sleep" is actually accurate and I feel okay about using it.
OK, that was depressing. Sorry. I'll try to post something cheerier in a little while.
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Date: 2002-10-04 04:03 pm (UTC)