By the way, I had forgotten how much it helps my writing to read Michael Chabon's fiction. Moonglow—eighty pages in— is wonderful.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Has anyone other than I let a pet die at home rather than at a vet's office, and if so, why?*
*I'm gonna post this on quora.com to see what I get
Answers are flying in:
Ironic you ask me this today…My parent’s dog died this morning. He was my dog’s best friend…Uncle Moose. He suddenly got sick and tests came back with a lot of problems. He was 9. My dad wouldn’t put him down. Took him home. It was heartbreaking to see him laying there. I took my girl to see him so she would know he was sick and may die. She was worried and nervous the entire time. We had to let her see him so she wouldn’t always look for him when she went over to their house. My parents sat on the couch with him and petted him until his last breath. I’m heartbroken for my girl and for them.
—someone named Cari who doesn't know the difference between irony and coincidence
I got a tiny gray kitten for Mother’s Day, named her Zoe, and she died when she was 22 years old. We kept her son and got her fixed, and then she just became part of the house, not too affectionate, but always getting along with the other cats, mostly keeping to herself, coming around for some scratches once in a while. She was always very healthy, and as the years went on, her son passed away, but she soldiered on. When she started to slow down, we took her to the vet, all organs OK, teeth good enough, so we took her home and life went on. Then she got so skinny, the vet said things were giving out, did we want to put her down? No, she could still walk around, eat, use the litterbox, and she wasn’t in pain, so why would we? One night, we were in the den watching TV, and all of a sudden, she jumped up on the computer desk chair and just laid down. That was very unusual as she was keeping more and more to herself lately. I somehow knew she wanted to be with us, her family, and as the evening wore on, she died. We buried her in the backyard, next to her son, and I cried (as I am now) but I loved her all her long life and am so glad she went on her own terms, with her family.
—scifi writer, Albuquerque
We did. Our cat was dying of kidney disease. He quit eating a week before he died. The vet said it wasn’t painful, and the cat enjoyed being with us and acted pretty normal, so we just kept an eye on him after we all went back home. The night he died, he was on my lap - he had climbed up when I was on the floor. I had to go put the kids to bed, so I laid him on my husband’s lap. When I came back downstairs, I realized that although he was still breathing, he had slipped into a coma and wasn’t responsive. About twenty minutes later, he quit breathing. We were glad he had died at home with the people who loved him.—Johns Hopkins employee, Baltimore
No comments:
Post a Comment