Rather unusual post, as I usually like to keep to something programming or at least tech related, but since I don’t write on my blog as often as I’d like, I figured- hey, what the hell, I can write about whatever I want.
last night I had to have my furry friend, Oscar, put down:
He was around 10 years old. I have pictures of him as a kitten when he was 2016, so he can’t be much older than that. He was actually my brother’s cat originally, but when he moved out of the family home he decided to leave Oscar behind because he had bonded with everybody and Oscar and his girlfriends cat did not get along. Sometime after that, Oscar got sick. We took him to an emergency veterinarian and he had a urinary blockage and needed an emergency procedure. I paid about $2K to get him treatment. From then on he got special food. I made that choice because I didn’t feel it would be fair to him to have him put down, which was the other choice, because he was so young.
I noticed his behaviour was changing perhaps a week ago. though his behaviour always went through “phases” where he liked to be under the couch or in a particular chair, or suddenly got obsessed with something. I definitely noticed he was sick but wasn’t really sure what was wrong. I hoped I was overthinking things and he would get better.
On Sunday, He got very lethargic and seemed barely conscious. He’d occasionally give a high-pitched meow. I also noticed that he was having trouble standing. I decided that this must be something more serious, so took him to an emergency vet. I still hoped I was overthinking things, but that was not the case. He was dehydrated, suffering from a kidney infection, and his lethargy was likely due to acidoketosis, as he had also developed diabetes. Those were just the major problems, he had a number of others. Treatment would have been in the range of 6 to 8K. I am in the enviable position of being able to afford that; it is a lot of money, though, and my biggest concern is what sort of quality of life would he have? Even the best case scenario, he would need insulin shots for the rest of his life, which would never be the same. And he was very sick so whether the treatment even worked was up in the air. It felt like I was choosing between saying goodbye now by having him put down, or prolonging is suffering because I refused to say goodbye. I made the difficult choice to have him put down.
This was the first time I’ve had to be present, let alone holding the animal when it was being put down. I still feel awful. I can’t decide if the idea that I’d be prolonging his suffering was just a convenient excuse I hid behind and my real concern was saving money? Was the idea of having to give him shots too much work? Was I having him put down for my convenience? I still can’t decide. I think these are the sorts of choices we second guess for a long time. I’d probably be second-guessing myself if I got him treatment, even in the best case scenario as it was described.
Interestingly, I found a very old draft post I had written a long time ago, when another cat, “Squeak” died. It was titled “Dealing with death, or why I’m not as strong as I thought I was”. She was very young and got injured from some unknown source. At the time we were all very poor however and couldn’t even afford any sort of vet visit. Unfortunately I feel like this just prolonged the poor girl’s suffering, from whatever it was she was suffering from, until one day She actually crawled under my bed and died.
In any case like any loss I know it will stop hurting eventually and fade over time. I’m not really sure it’s fully hit me yet that he’s gone. I mean I recognize it. I know what it means, but I haven’t “felt” it yet?
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