Long ago, I came to the conclusion that we don’t really appreciate something until we realize that it’s going away.
If you think about it, it makes sense. We live busy and distracted existences. If there is someone or something in our lives, especially if we see them (or it) every day, it’s just as easy to assume it will be there tomorrow and get on about our business. Whether it’s a place, a person, or a pet, until it becomes obvious that our time left with them is finite, it is all too easy to take them for granted.
When I learned that my sixteen year old cat, Mrs. Claws, was dying, everything else in life slowed down or came to a full stop. I had just spent a very happy three-day birthday weekend with her, sitting by the fireplace with her on my lap as the rain fell, reading books and watching football. I noticed that she hadn’t been eating much, but only when I realized on Monday that she was dehydrated, did her condition suddenly seem urgent.
Hours later, I was in an exam room when the vet broke the news. Mrs. Claws, after experiencing years of lower G.I. disease, was bleeding internally. She coincidentally had had a blood test a few weeks before, so when they compared her red blood cell count between then and now, they could see that it had dropped precipitously low.
I was given a choice. Neither option was good. I could haver her put to sleep. Bleeding to death like this, I was told, was not a pleasant way to go. The other option was to have the vet give her a blood transfusion. The latter would make her feel better, but only for a few days—maybe a week—but not much longer. Since they didn’t know where or why she was bleeding internally, without being able to stop it, it would like trying to refill a bathtub without first plugging the drain.
Mrs. Claws was an old and loving cat. She had lived a good life. She had spent her senior years napping on my bed until it seemed that she had become a part of it. Imagine a bed that loves back!
When my wife left me after twenty-two years of marriage, Mrs. Claws had been my rock. It was she who took care of me, snuggling with me every night when it was now just the two of us on the mattress. I had just spent a lovely weekend with her. How could it be over now? The thought of going back that night to an empty bed was almost more than my mind could grasp.
A series of agonizing decisions. That’s what the end of our animal companion’s lives often comes down to. With a pet’s health, we are given life and death decisions that we wouldn’t have placed in our hands if it was a human. No one would say, “Grandma needs a blood transfusion. What should we do?”
There are rarely good answers. Make the wrong one, and it could haunt you for years.
When it came to making these kinds decisions, I learned many things from Mrs. Claws’s final illness. In the end, it all came down to this: Avoiding regret.
1. First, I called out each decision for what it was: A decision. A fork in the road. I made each one consciously. I didn’t take anything lightly. That’s pretty obvious advice when it comes to something like, “Do I put my cat to sleep or not?” but when time is running out, when days or even hours are slipping away, things like, “Should I take the day off work to hang out with her?”, “Should I cancel my weekend plans to spend a few last days together?”, “Do I sleep with my spouse or with my animal?” are decisions that can later haunt us. Some may seem trivial in the moment, but each could be something you come to regret later. Be aware of each decision, big or small.
2. Make each decision for yourself, not about what friends or family might think. Did it make sense to pay for a blood transfusion to buy one more week of Mrs. Claws’s life? The only person’s opinion that mattered was mine. At the same time, if I felt like keeping Mrs. Claws around for another week would only amount to her suffering for longer, I wouldn’t want to put her through that. Again, it wasn’t about what other people might think or even about the animal. I was about me and making the best decision with the information I had, for all concerned. (Fortunately, I didn’t have children to complicate the mix. I only had to worry about what would haunt me. This could easily extend to everyone with skin in the game. What would potentially haunt us? Does it make sense, for example, to keep the kids home from school to spend one last day with the animal if it meant giving them a chance to say goodbye? Or would those last hours only cause more grief?)
3. Imagine yourself in the future looking back on this decision having chosen Path A; now do the same, but looking back on what life would be like if you had chosen Path B. Ask yourself, with each option, which decision would you regret less and choose that option.
When it comes to avoiding regret, when it comes to preventing something that will haunt you later, look at every junction, every decision point and make the decision consciously, for yourself, with the best information you have at the time. If something goes wrong later, you can always say to yourself, “I did the best I could at the time with the information I had available. There is no reason to regret. I did my best.”
For Mrs. Claws, I had them give her the blood transfusion. I needed to spend that last week with her. I needed time to say goodbye and the vet assured me that the transfusion would make her feel a lot better. The idea of alleviating her suffering, even for a little while, caused me a tremendous amount of relief.
They gave her the blood transfusion and I took her home the next day. They changed up her meds, and I spent that week with her in the bed that she loved, enjoying every last moment that I could, taking nothing for granted. I petted her, held her, gave her Reiki, and enjoyed her presence. I always did appreciate her, but now I appreciated her every moment I could. Only then did I realize that I could have spent her entire life adoring her every moment and it still wouldn’t have been enough.
Miraculously, either because of the meds or the Reiki or both, Mrs. Claws rebounded and lived another six months. A month later, her red blood cell count was back to normal.
I knew this wasn’t the end of her illness. Her days were numbered. In the weeks and months that followed, she required an immense amount of care, but I was thrilled to do it. It was a gift to me, my way of showing her how much I loved her, of taking care of her the way she had taken care of me.
Those decisions, those forks in the road, came daily. Sometimes I choose to cancel plans and stay in with her. Sometimes I didn’t. But I made each one with my eyes open, thinking of the future: No regrets.
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