Day: July 25, 2020

Choosing Euthanasia

On 13. June 2020, my beautiful 17-year-old tabby, ‘rissa, died after a long bout with what my vet finally came to believe was a nasal or frontal mass. For two years, she had repeated respiratory infections with sneezing and coughing, as well as occasional breathing issues; we treated her with steroids and antibiotics and hot steam showers and wet, warm compresses. Her symptoms eased after each treatment and she continued to eat, drink, eliminate, and play until maybe 3 or 4 months before her death.

At that point, I began to notice swelling at the bridge of her nose and, later, at her forehead. It came and went and came again, with steroids helping each time. But as the days wore on, she gradually stopped eating most of her food, no longer played and, in the last week, demonstrated severe weakness in her hind legs.

That night, the 13th, she had been lying around all day, as she had in the past week. We were getting ready for bed and she got down off the couch, peed on the floor, and just plopped down, seemingly exhausted and unable to go on. I’d seen her plop down like that a few times, but this time was measurably different.

I’d been thinking for a long while about how I would manage things when one of my girls could no longer function without noticeable suffering. My other cat, Silk, is 11 and has lymphoma; my concerns started more than a year ago with her and, while I never suspected ‘rissa would leave me first, I couldn’t help but consider possibilities for her as well.

I’ve never accepted euthanasia in the same way so many do today. I’ve never been able to get my head around the idea that when we euthanize, we are killing. We are stopping a heartbeat forever. Not only are we taking a life with euthanasia, with animals we are doing it without their consent. I ask myself all the questions I think everyone should be trying to understand: do they know? are they scared? do they wish they could stand up and yell at me to stop? are they truly suffering to the extent it appears? is this going to hurt them? I ask because, no matter how much people claim to understand about dying, nobody truly knows.

I think we rely too heavily on the idea that we can simply eliminate a part of a problem to solve the bigger one. Even those who are reportedly working for animal rights and care aren’t immune; organizations like PETA, which does fantastic work with/for farmed animals, has a long history of killing pets, oftentimes without any reasonable justification and sometimes completely outside of their rights to do so. People seek out vets to euthanize animals that are sick and too expensive or sometimes simply because they don’t want to care for them anymore. And many vets capitulate. It is unconscionable to me. Euthanasia is an acceptable end for animals in our society and its acceptance likely contributes to the way a great many people view their place as “less than” humans.

I made the decision for my girl that night and she died in my arms. It seemed to be a peaceful passing; one minute she was there, she was breathing, her heart was beating rapidly, I could feel the tautness in her muscles, and the next she wasn’t. She lay there, eyes open and head floppy, and she was just gone. I still don’t know if I did the right thing. I still wonder what that was like for her and I still sometimes worry that I did it because *I* couldn’t bear her suffering anymore. I believe she is at peace now, but it doesn’t relieve the worry that I put her through more than she deserved.

Silk is sitting with me as I write tonight, and I know she won’t be with me forever. I stopped chemo recently, because it was making her deathly ill, and will try a more natural approach to control her symptoms. I am dreading the day when living becomes too much for her. I can only rest in knowing that she and ‘rissa both have had a life filled with a love and any decisions I make are made in that same heart-centered space.

Killing to Alleviate Suffering

The following post was published on Medium on February 3, 2020. I will be following it up here (where I will do all of my animal advocacy writing from now on) with a different (sort of) perspective on euthanasia.

I hate the term euthanasia. Loaded with heavy, ugly baggage, it conjures up for me images of kill shelters that destroy animals indiscriminately and pet parents who send their dogs or cats off to the vet to be killed because they were too needy or too expensive or they just didn’t want them anymore. Yes, killed. Please don’t misunderstand. I believe there comes a time when sometimes it is the only thing we can do to relieve an animal companion’s suffering. But I also believe we often overstep that “right” — often as a means of self-preservation, in the guise of “what’s best for her.” And, in fact, there is just no way to get around that we are killing our beloved companions; they are not just dying. We are taking life from them.

When we talk about death, we often do it in terms that sanitize the process. A person has “passed on” or “gone to Heaven” or “bought the farm” or “transitioned.” Although we may believe what the terms we use imply — I prefer the latter term as, in death, we are transitioning out of this life and into an unknown — we still can’t seem to get our heads around the idea that at the end of this life, we will be no more. Regardless of our beliefs, there can be no argument that we are gone from the world as we know it. We won’t go out with friends anymore, cook dinner, watch television, or have long intimate conversations (and more) with our lovers. Despite what many think, we don’t know where we will go or be or if, maybe, we just disappear into the nothingness.

Nobody wants to just disappear, to no longer be a part of the world. You and I don’t want to be thrust into a dark and empty (why must it always be dark and empty? Why not a beautiful forest with tall and protective trees and lots of chatty birds?) place, alone and without the people and animals we love so we, as humans, create these places where we will live on, in one form or another.

We do the same thing for our animal companions. The difference is that we are making a decision to end their lives based on presumed knowledge. We actually don’t know for a certainty, that they want to die. What we do know is that we don’t want to see them suffer. Many times, we don’t truly make the decision for them, but rather for how we are feeling about their illness or injury. We “don’t want to see them suffer” is a common phrase I hear which says volumes about how we make these end-of-life decisions. We don’t like to sit with their suffering, or what we perceive to be their suffering. And, in this culture, suffering is to be avoided at all cost.

I heard someone say that euthanasia is a “beautiful” process. I’ve been in that position where I’ve had to make a decision about a pet, sat with her while the vet injected the drug that would (literally) per her to sleep before she died, watch my family slip away. It wasn’t beautiful. It was heart-wrenching. She was no more. And I didn’t actually know if I had eliminated her suffering or made it worse. But in the end, it was apparent that I’d been complicit in her killing.

I think natural death is a beautiful process. Slipping away, dissolving into the surrounding energy, as we are meant to do. I’m aware that we all have different views of what happens at/after death; it is that knowledge that gives me pause when considering euthanasia. What if, by killing a pet, we are plunging them into a deeper and darker suffering? Does the suffering they experience while alive serve a purpose? Am I truly doing it for them or to alleviate the pain and anxiety I feel, watching them decline?

There is no one answer that serves everyone. As humans, we will follow our beliefs no matter where they take us. But I would hope that, as guardians of those who are family, we would use the opportunity when the time comes to think seriously and critically about why we are making the decision we are.

And I would hope that, regardless of those personal beliefs, we can respect those of others and help them through the grief process without judgment.

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