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#51
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Smudge is dying
I am very sorry Joyce
wrote in message ... MaryL wrote: I'm piggybacking here because the thread I was looking for is not on the list I'm viewing. Your message to Joyce is similar to what I was going to write. Someone told me that Joyce thought I was criticizing her with regard to a decision to euthanize. That was not my intention at all. I was trying to describe how hard the decision is and how it can be a mistake to wait too long. Most of us have been through that--we keep "rethinking," and we are always afraid that we made that terrible decision either too early or too late. I guess this is as good a time as any to give an update on this sad story. I couldn't bring myself to post about it earlier. I helped Smudge off to the next phase of life's journey, if indeed there is a next phase, last Thursday morning, April. 7. Wherever she is, I know she's not hurting. I brought her to a second vet. It was important to me to have a second opinion before making such a huge and irreversible decision, but he said essentially the same thing. He wasn't so worried about a rupture, although he said it was possible. But he was certain that her cancer was terminal and that she wouldn't live very long. We talked about maybe giving her prednisone for a while, which would slow down the cancer, help her feel better and get her eating again, and might give her a few more weeks of some quality time. But the problem is, she wanted to be outside. And the vet thought that was a bad idea, because if she were to have a rupture, or some other painful and life-threatening develpment, and happened to be outside when it happened, she'd probably go off and hide. And it would also be very difficult to medicate her regularly if she weren't in a place where I would have control. That might have been worked out with a couple of neighbors' help, but the bottom line was that she was too sick to be out running around. So I was faced with the option of helping her feel better, only to keep her cooped up in one room. What a cruel way to end her days. That's not what I would consider "quality of life" for a cat whose only requirement for happiness was to be free to come and go, smell the outdoors, and visit her many human friends. The vet was helpful, and he spent a lot of time with me helping me think it through and come to a decision. I'm not sure I would have been able to do that on my own. As it is, I've been second-guessing myself ever since. The next morning, a neighbor came up to me as I was leaving for work to tell me how sorry she was. She said that many people in the neighborhood were brokenhearted over it. Smudge was a very friendly and popular cat. And then the neighbor said that she was going to plant a tomato plant in her garden in honor of Smudge - just for me, so I can have tomatoes all summer. Is that the sweetest thing ever?? The Smudge Memorial Tomato Plant, LOL. Joyce PS - Mary, I was so wracked with guilt and anxiety last week that I was taking all sorts of comments as personal insults. You used the word "selfish" in your post - which, it sounds like you're saying, wasn't even directed at me. But unfortunately, that word presses my hottest of hot buttons. And there's no way one can hold life or death power over another being without worrying about being too selfish, among many other things. |
#52
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Smudge is dying
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#53
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Smudge is dying
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#54
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Smudge is dying
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#56
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Smudge is dying
Takayuki wrote:
That must have been so very hard! The cancer was what made things irreversible, not you. Smudge was lucky to have such a good friend and meowmie who let her be a free spirit, and save her all the times she was lost, stuck, in pain, or in danger. These are some of the cute pictures I collected of the little bohemian girl: http://home.comcast.net/~takayuki9z/smudge/ Awww! I love all those pictures. I just wish I had more recent ones. The two cameras I used to have are no longer operational, and the last couple of times my friend Stef came over with her good camera and took pictures, Smudge was out galavanting. So, my most recent pictures of Smudge are 3 or 4 years old, and most are much older. It's funny that you think of her as a bohemian. I used to think that if she were a human being, she would have been Gertrude Stein - someone who was strong-willed, quirky and brilliant. She certainly had a mind of her own. It's dawning on me that I've been secretly harboring the hope that she would eventually make her way back to living in my house when she got too old, too tired or too arthritic to live the outdoor life. Joyce -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. |
#57
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Smudge is dying
Jack Campin wrote:
These are some of the cute pictures I collected of the little bohemian girl: http://home.comcast.net/~takayuki9z/smudge/ I hadn't seen many of those before. What a gorgeous cat. (None of ours ever discovered CRTs before we went over to flat screens). What is the very, very dead thing in the last picture? It's only "dead" in the sense that it has always been inanimate matter. Well, come to think of it, I'm not sure about that. It used to be part of a feather duster, but I don't remember whether they were real or artificial feathers. I didn't mean to take a picture of her next to it, that's just where she happened to be hanging out. But when I got the picture developed (this was my now defunct 35mm analog camera) I noticed how much she resembled it. In fact, on my web page that has picturees of Roxy and Smudge from 1998-2000, I called her a "feline feather duster". Here's one of my favorite pics of her. She was about a year old when this was taken, but other than her fur getting more matted over the years, her appearance didn't change much since then: http://www.sonic.net/~jwermont/cats/...os/smudge6.jpg You can see a lot more Smudge pics he http://www.sonic.net/~jwermont/cats/original/cats.html And he http://www.sonic.net/~jwermont/cats/...more_cats.html Joyce -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't. |
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