To sleep, perchance to dream - of slow and clumsy mice
A week ago I sent my beloved Pumpkin into oblivion. There are many things I’d like to say about him, but I also need to unpack what it was like to end a life. (Triggers, obviously.)
Husband and I have understood for a long time that one day it would fall to us to make this decision for one of the cats. We had a running gag where if any cat (or fellow human for that matter) would utter the tiniest cough or sneeze we would instantly proclaim “BLAM!” It was funny for us because it was a hair-trigger response that we would never make in practice.
We were also painfully aware of the “How much is your love worth?” calculation we might one day be forced to make. Was one of our cats worth a $10,000 surgery bill? No? $5,000? $1,000? What exactly? How much time would we gain? How much extra suffering would the animal have to go through before the benefits emerged?
So yes, we’ve given this a lot of thought over the years, mainly in response to the eldest Cally’s various brushes with death.
In many ways the decision to let Pumpkin go was a relatively easy one, in the end. It was pure torture knowing that the day was coming, but since we knew he was not going to recover I had decided it would be better to send him off perhaps sooner than absolutely necessary, rather than take the risk of keeping him suffering for too long. I don’t think that happened, though. The transition from happy Birman to inward-looking and distressed Birman happened very quickly. One day he was getting by; the next day he was not. It was clear that he had crossed the line. We gave him until morning to show signs of recovery, but he did not - rather he deteriorated further.
I feel absolutely confident that I chose the right time to send him off, and this is very important to me. Financial considerations never came into it (thank heavens), nor did one of my other fears that I would get rid of him prematurely because I couldn’t hack the required level of care. I was really worried about that last one, that he would die because I was being merely squeamish.
I do not feel as though I have killed him, nor that I took anything away except pain and distress, and for this I am very grateful. I did not have to watch him suffer more and more, waiting on edge for days and weeks for his breathing and pulse to finally stop. I am grateful that a decision could be made and action taken in a specific time frame. I have stood death watch before, and it’s hard.
Pumpkin was put to sleep two days before the first anniversary of Dad’s passing from intensely painful bone cancer. At the time I wished he could be spared that last week or two as well. Nothing would have been lost, and much gained.