2004-12-16
QUALITY OF LIFE
Face to Face with Mortality | Sylvester had to be put to sleep today. Euthanized, that is …why resort to euphemism? About a month and a half ago he’d been diagnosed with diabetes. Then hope was that he’d be able to adapt to twice daily shots of insulin and a more regulated diet and love for at least a couple more years | Sadly, this wasn’t to be the case |
Last week, Sylvester's health took a dramatic turn for the worse | His blood sugar levels was way through the roof; he seemed almost comatose | We took him to the vet | Although we'd asked "no heroic measures" the vets thought they could stabilize 'Vester' and he'd be able to live a couple of years longer |
And while it did not seem they were doing anything out of the ordinary in their interventions, by last night it was apparent that anything was an "heroic measure" | The ketone stick test showed brown | This morning, it was back to the vets and to put him down | Bill stayed home; good thing | I would not have been able to get him back home afterwards | Went right from there to work | Returning later to pick him up for burial ~ Bill's not keen on cremation |
Now, one would think the death of a small animal wouldn't do much to affect me | He wasn't even my cat | But I had cared for him when Bill was in the hospital for almost 10 months, and we'd gotten close as it were | After being there to hold him with getting a lethal injection [it took almost no time to take effect], then spending may 30 minutes talking with the doc, the ride to work was entirely spent releasing just sheer mental exhaustion | ¶ 22:13
Face to Face with Mortality | Sylvester had to be put to sleep today. Euthanized, that is …why resort to euphemism? About a month and a half ago he’d been diagnosed with diabetes. Then hope was that he’d be able to adapt to twice daily shots of insulin and a more regulated diet and love for at least a couple more years | Sadly, this wasn’t to be the case |
Last week, Sylvester's health took a dramatic turn for the worse | His blood sugar levels was way through the roof; he seemed almost comatose | We took him to the vet | Although we'd asked "no heroic measures" the vets thought they could stabilize 'Vester' and he'd be able to live a couple of years longer |
And while it did not seem they were doing anything out of the ordinary in their interventions, by last night it was apparent that anything was an "heroic measure" | The ketone stick test showed brown | This morning, it was back to the vets and to put him down | Bill stayed home; good thing | I would not have been able to get him back home afterwards | Went right from there to work | Returning later to pick him up for burial ~ Bill's not keen on cremation |
Now, one would think the death of a small animal wouldn't do much to affect me | He wasn't even my cat | But I had cared for him when Bill was in the hospital for almost 10 months, and we'd gotten close as it were | After being there to hold him with getting a lethal injection [it took almost no time to take effect], then spending may 30 minutes talking with the doc, the ride to work was entirely spent releasing just sheer mental exhaustion | ¶ 22:13
