Just because you chose not to take certain steps does not mean you put the
animal down. Allow the cat/dog/elephant to tell you if and when she needs
help leaving this world. Put aside your own feelings and sit very quietly
with your friend, talk to her as though she was a person and ask her help.
Ask what she wants and needs (unfortunately they may not be the same thing).
Allow her to guide you. Know the difference between discomfort and true
lasting pain. And allow your nephew to be a part of this. Do not exclude
him because you want to save him the "hurt." You will prevent him from
giving and receiving true love, the love an animal gives us unconditionally.
Have no regrets about Cricket. We all question ourselves but act with true
love for the critter entrusted to your care and not to make things easier
for yourself. I promise you, it would have been a lot easier for me to have
done what the specialists wanted with Kitty but it would not have been an
act of love. Luckily, I have a set of vets that understand the value of
life as well as quality of life (I wish a lot of physicians understood this)
and we talked about what each of us would want in the situation. Perhaps
that is what you need to do, ask Stretch to help you understand what you
would truly want. Maybe that is her special job on earth.
My prayers are with you and I am asking my angels to help you, your nephew
and your four legged friends who have been, are, and will be.
----- Original Message -----
From: "wendy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <felvtalk@felineleukemia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 9:52 AM
Subject: Marylyn
Marylyn,
Thank you for the advice. I hadn't thought to ask
Stretch what she wants, and will do that tonight. I
don't know how much I will understand from her (or her
me) without using a communicator, but maybe I will get
lucky. She has been really good about taking the food
I have fed her twice now, although this morning she
wasn't as happy about it. Maybe that is a good sign
though; maybe the food is making her feel better.
You make a good point about treatments maybe not being
what an animal wants. I have pondered this a lot
after I lost Cricket. I often wonder how I would have
felt had I just taken him in to be pts, which was the
original plan. Instead, after someone caringly
suggested that a feeding tube might help save him or
at least give him a little more time, which I thought
was a great idea, to have one inserted. Part of why
he was going downhill so fast was that he wasn't
eating. Also, I selfishly wasn't ready to let him go,
and I did want him to feel better and get some food on
his stomach; no one feels good when they are starving.
I do and don't regret my decision to insert the
feeding tube. I would probably do the same thing
given the same circumstances, yet I will never forget
the last time we looked at each other with him being
lucid, which was through the glass of the anesthesia
gas box. He had that look like don't leave me and I
told him it would be ok, and it wasn't. But you know,
had he come out of it and not died that night and
lived longer feeling better, I would have been elated
that he had gotten the feeding tube. And that could
have been the sitution given a different cat or had
Cricket been in a little healthier place. We can
never make all the right decisions, because we don't
know all the variables and can't see into the future.
Living with those decisions that don't turn out the
way we would have liked can be hard.
Thank you for taking the time to write. I will keep
everyone posted on Stretch. Please keep us in your
prayers.
:)
Wendy
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