Seven.
Last night I was crying so hard in bed that I had to get up and do something else for a while. I started the immediate process of saying goodbye - as opposed to the Long Goodbye I've been living since September, and her diagnosis. I vowed to call the vet and make an appointment. This moved from a gray idea of knowing by osmosis when it was time, to a remembered comment from the very kind, and very young vet who saw her at SVS and gave us her preliminary cancer diagnosis.
When she came back in with the disheartening results of Seven's chest x-ray I reached a point where I couldn't function anymore without hiccuping sobs coming out instead of words. When I asked if we could just go, because I was getting too upset to absorb anything, Dr. Kiyonaga offered to send me her discharge summary in an email so that I wouldn't have to take notes or try to retain upsetting information top of mind for later recall. What a blessing.
She called the next day with the cytology results, which confirmed the cancer diagnosis. I got as far as I could asking questions, and asked her to send me another word doc, this time of the clinical cytology results, as well as a few sentences in layman's terms. That's what Dr. Waters did for me with Bishop. I don't think it's something that Dr. Kiyonaga had done before, and when I received her report it was clear that she'd spent a good chunk of time and effort laying out the technical terms and then translating them for me.
I responded to her email with thanks, and wondering if it would be okay for me to ask her to fill an Rx for cough medication, and to take her to the ER for euthanasia, as opposed to some vet I'd never seen before (since the ER isn't really intended for ongoing primary care). She was so kind. Of course she would prescribe medications, and of course I could take her in for euthanasia, but also wanted me to look into home euthanasia because Seven absolutely panics when she's forced into a kennel and into a car.
She also called me out of the blue a week later and left me a voicemail telling me that she was prescribing cough medicine premptively and that I could come and pick it up anytime I felt like she needed it.
But what I saw yesterday evening was Seven chewing on her hind foot aggressively. All at once I remembered something Doc Kiy said during our phone call. The type of cancer Seven has tends to travel to the animals toes. Doc was reluctant to give me specifics about an appropriate time for euthanasia (which I can understand), but the one specific she DID give me was to watch out for behavior indicating that the tumors have spread to her toes, and that that was likely a good indicator of it being "time." So last night when I saw the foot chewing a very impartial, rational version of myself (the version I like best, frankly) roared to life that it is indeed time. I've been worrying about worsening coughing, and fussing over whether or not her appetite is sliding, and the early symptoms of renal failure, because they're all happening. But as long as she's seemed happy, and not in acute respiratory distress or renal failure, that it would be okay to keep her with me.
Today I'm good and panicked because I did call the Doc, although I had to leave a voicemail. I'm going to be putting Seven down before she is in constant pain, which is good, I think. I wasn't there when my mom really slid downhill, but by all accounts she worsened quickly and consistently upon my departure. Right up until she died she said that she wasn't ready to go, yet, but I know from family that she was in a shocking amount of pain in the weeks leading up to her death.
I'm telling myself the following: Cats are excellent at hiding pain, so I don't have an excellent gauge on her actual level of discomfort. I'm moving anyway, and she's dying anyway, both by the end of the year. She doesn't have the capacity to understand that it's possible I've made this decision early. *I'm* the one with the capacity to struggle with that. She doesn't have to endure the agony of knowing an impending death, because she'll be released before that part of the journey starts. And she's been happy in the past two weeks. I'm letting her outside, I'm feeding her organic half and half - both things that she adores that I think are bad for her. I'm sleeping with her when she wants to but I'm not forcing her to sleep with me or hang out with me if she's not in the mood. She's eating expensive cat food and I have a box for packing that sitting in the middle of the living room for her to play in. I have taken good care of her always, and particularly good care over the past 6 weeks. I think I can live with putting her down as much as a week - even two weeks - before she's miserable and it's obviously time, because it's better than me waking up to a coughing fit that doesn't stop or obvious & extensive dehydration. If either of those things happen it will have already been time, and I'll have missed it. So here's me, reassuring myself that it IS time, and that I am doing the right thing. It's kind of a better safe than sorry thing, that, when combined with Doc's recommending that I take action when the tumors move to her feet, I can live with. I hate it, but I can live with it. I think too many people probably wait until their pet's lives are agony, and it's selfish. I think it might also be selfish that I'm putting her out of a mediocre misery because I don't want to see that. I *don't* want to see her go downhill *more* than I want to keep her alive and with me. It's a hairsbreadth difference, but it's there.
So it's time to say goodbye and to make sure that these last days are good ones that I can look back on with a measure of comfort.
When she came back in with the disheartening results of Seven's chest x-ray I reached a point where I couldn't function anymore without hiccuping sobs coming out instead of words. When I asked if we could just go, because I was getting too upset to absorb anything, Dr. Kiyonaga offered to send me her discharge summary in an email so that I wouldn't have to take notes or try to retain upsetting information top of mind for later recall. What a blessing.
She called the next day with the cytology results, which confirmed the cancer diagnosis. I got as far as I could asking questions, and asked her to send me another word doc, this time of the clinical cytology results, as well as a few sentences in layman's terms. That's what Dr. Waters did for me with Bishop. I don't think it's something that Dr. Kiyonaga had done before, and when I received her report it was clear that she'd spent a good chunk of time and effort laying out the technical terms and then translating them for me.
I responded to her email with thanks, and wondering if it would be okay for me to ask her to fill an Rx for cough medication, and to take her to the ER for euthanasia, as opposed to some vet I'd never seen before (since the ER isn't really intended for ongoing primary care). She was so kind. Of course she would prescribe medications, and of course I could take her in for euthanasia, but also wanted me to look into home euthanasia because Seven absolutely panics when she's forced into a kennel and into a car.
She also called me out of the blue a week later and left me a voicemail telling me that she was prescribing cough medicine premptively and that I could come and pick it up anytime I felt like she needed it.
But what I saw yesterday evening was Seven chewing on her hind foot aggressively. All at once I remembered something Doc Kiy said during our phone call. The type of cancer Seven has tends to travel to the animals toes. Doc was reluctant to give me specifics about an appropriate time for euthanasia (which I can understand), but the one specific she DID give me was to watch out for behavior indicating that the tumors have spread to her toes, and that that was likely a good indicator of it being "time." So last night when I saw the foot chewing a very impartial, rational version of myself (the version I like best, frankly) roared to life that it is indeed time. I've been worrying about worsening coughing, and fussing over whether or not her appetite is sliding, and the early symptoms of renal failure, because they're all happening. But as long as she's seemed happy, and not in acute respiratory distress or renal failure, that it would be okay to keep her with me.
Today I'm good and panicked because I did call the Doc, although I had to leave a voicemail. I'm going to be putting Seven down before she is in constant pain, which is good, I think. I wasn't there when my mom really slid downhill, but by all accounts she worsened quickly and consistently upon my departure. Right up until she died she said that she wasn't ready to go, yet, but I know from family that she was in a shocking amount of pain in the weeks leading up to her death.
I'm telling myself the following: Cats are excellent at hiding pain, so I don't have an excellent gauge on her actual level of discomfort. I'm moving anyway, and she's dying anyway, both by the end of the year. She doesn't have the capacity to understand that it's possible I've made this decision early. *I'm* the one with the capacity to struggle with that. She doesn't have to endure the agony of knowing an impending death, because she'll be released before that part of the journey starts. And she's been happy in the past two weeks. I'm letting her outside, I'm feeding her organic half and half - both things that she adores that I think are bad for her. I'm sleeping with her when she wants to but I'm not forcing her to sleep with me or hang out with me if she's not in the mood. She's eating expensive cat food and I have a box for packing that sitting in the middle of the living room for her to play in. I have taken good care of her always, and particularly good care over the past 6 weeks. I think I can live with putting her down as much as a week - even two weeks - before she's miserable and it's obviously time, because it's better than me waking up to a coughing fit that doesn't stop or obvious & extensive dehydration. If either of those things happen it will have already been time, and I'll have missed it. So here's me, reassuring myself that it IS time, and that I am doing the right thing. It's kind of a better safe than sorry thing, that, when combined with Doc's recommending that I take action when the tumors move to her feet, I can live with. I hate it, but I can live with it. I think too many people probably wait until their pet's lives are agony, and it's selfish. I think it might also be selfish that I'm putting her out of a mediocre misery because I don't want to see that. I *don't* want to see her go downhill *more* than I want to keep her alive and with me. It's a hairsbreadth difference, but it's there.
So it's time to say goodbye and to make sure that these last days are good ones that I can look back on with a measure of comfort.