lwood

For those of you who know my cats, George has lost 25% of his already scanty weight in the past two months. Today, he would not eat canned food and barely lapped at water.

dpaxson and I took him to the vet.

George has been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (cause: Old Cats Do That) and liver disease (cause: Unknown, but the vet asked the boon of finding out, and I granted it: it seemed a small favor I could do her readily enough). Also, his heart murmur has gotten worse, but not too bad, and his intestinal flora are in open revolt and filled his tract with gas.

We have had him at the vet all day on this and that--most notably an IV drip to hydrate him and some painkillers, a fine opiate that can be absorbed through the gums. There's also an antacid and antibiotic to act as gastrointestinal riot police.

These are all palliative.

Tonight, Snug Harbor is a kitty hospice.

I listened to the veterinarian, followed along dutifully on every piece of jargon, the results of the tests they could run right there and then. If he were propped back up from this bout of kidney disease, his kidneys will not magically start to work: there will be another episode, and another, while we wait and watch him poison himself from the inside out.

I said, "Forgive me--I'm going to lapse into computer jargon here, I need a little emotional distance right now. Leaving aside the liver thing, is the kidney disease enough of a showstopper on its own that, in your professional opinion, euthanasia is the recommended course of action?"

I could see the numbers on the paper for the sundry enzymes--what they had been three months ago, what they were now, what normal was. They were very bad numbers. I could set aside my heart and see them, just like that: Very Bad Numbers.

As a sysadmin, I have learned how to be good at setting aside my liver (it's the yellow bile, you see) and see which numbers are all right, which are naughty, and which are very bad.

These tell me that my darling love is not well. The veterinarian is telling me that it will not really get better. I am asking if the numbers are bad enough that it is more compassionate to kill him rather than let him go on, a weakening bag of fragile bones, who only wants to love his humans and curl up on them and eat nice foods and good 'nip now and again. I can't tell him why it hurts--but I can make it stop.

Is it really that bad? Is it? I have steeled myself, in that moment, because I know damn well it is. The tears I could not shed then I shed now, writing this.

"Yes."

dpaxson's hand is in mine, squeezing it gently, and I nod. "Then that is how we will proceed."

It will be tomorrow. All three of us will be there--I will ask if I can be the one to push the plunger, heeding the Grand Master's words:

"When the need arises - and it does - you must be able to shoot your own dog."

So.

Right now I'm vacillating between:

Holy crap, it's a cat, get over yourself.

I have known that cat longer than I've known all y'all except countgeiger. Screw off, first bullet point!

Was this the most compassionate course? To make one more comfortable night? Would it not have been better to have killed him this afternoon?

I think so, third bullet point. I really do.

Dude, you just blew (mumble) hundred dollars on a cat you plan to kill tomorrow. That's, like, stupid.

If I'm ever asked to give a reckoning of myself, I should like to think I had gone well. That I had guarded growth where I could, eased pain where I could. Die in a fire, fifth bullet point.