This time tomorrow, we have our family vet coming over to perform the final kindness to our remaining animal companion. She was diagnosed with chronic renal failure a couple of weeks back and it’s taking its tool very quickly. Poor old thing is down to skin and bone and at 17, she wasn’t overweight.
We realized yesterday she was tipping beyond the care of modern medicine: we could prolong the inevitable with IV fluids but the stress of IV treatment and the trips there and back aren’t worth it for the diminished quality of life she’s left with.
There will be some distraught children to be consoled: they are off school tomorrow, which is one reason to do it then. They should have the option of being here for it, so we’ll have a good family cry afterwards.
<update> We couldn’t make her wait that long.
She was in a bad way all night and just looked awful this morning. Couldn’t eat or drink, couldn’t keep anything down. So I took her over at 9 AM and held her on my lap as she went.
There is something to the idea that they know when it’s time. She wasn’t happy about the car trip and being wrapped in a towel in a strange place was disconcerting. But as she sat with me and warmed up in the towel and I kept stroking and rubbing her ears and face, she relaxed. I think she almost purred, a sound I haven’t heard in a a couple of weeks, and she was the loudest purring cat I have ever known.
When the time came, we elected to see if we could do it without moving her. So we kept her wrapped up, all but one foreleg and her head. A quick shave — about an inch square — and a small injection, to which she never stirred or reacted, and she was gone in about 5 seconds. A few post mortem quivers and expulsions and that was that.
Then it was my turn to cry: everyone else had theirs before I left.
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