I’ve had better Saturdays. One of our lovely cats, Ronnie, has been ill for some time, and this week my partner and I made the difficult decision to have him put to sleep. The vet had explained that although he was probably not in pain, he would be feeling terrible. He’s been losing so much weight due to his illness that he’s become to resemble a bag of bones. He’s not been eating well and he’s been sloping off to hide under various beds. It has been awful to watch his decline. And in the end, it came down to a simple decision: did we want to see him suffer anymore? It wasn’t a difficult one.
We were with him throughout the procedure. Basically, he was given an overdose of anaesthetic and he slipped away peacefully, his eyes still open as the vet confirmed he was dead. Our eyes weren’t open. I felt like a complete idiot as I blubbered my apologies to the lovely vet. But for all that, I believed we had done the right thing. In an ideal world, Ronnie would have been happy and healthy forever, but this is not an ideal world. All things must pass.
We all regard it as quite normal when a much loved family pet is saved from further pain and anguish. Ronnie is not the first cat we have lost over the years and he won’t be the last. We all accept that it’s absolutely the right thing to stop an animal suffering so why don’t we feel the same about humans?
I was with my stepfather when he died a horrible death at the hands of Parkinson’s and then dementia. I won’t relate his final years, except to say that I would not want anyone to live through what he did. If you can call it living. I would want to enjoy the same simple dignity my cat enjoyed today, rather than be kept alive not knowing where, or indeed who, I was. I have seen the effects of illnesses like dementia, Huntingdon’s and MND wreck lives to the extent that those who were suffering weren’t really living at all. I have always said that like a sick cat, I would like to have the choice to be put out of my misery, so as not to become a burden on anyone, at a time at the time of my choosing or at a time when it was certain that I had lost my faculties. Life, at least for me, is for living. Life in itself is not enough.
I know that there will be those who object to the very idea of euthanasia but I have a simple solution for them: if you object to euthanasia, then don’t agree to be euthanised. If people want to be kept alive for the sake of it, it’s a matter for them. I would not dream of telling someone they must be put to death if they become very ill and by the same token these people should not tell me what I should do.
Our poorly cat suffers no more. I’m still teary about it, but we did the right thing by him. I hope that one day we can be as caring to ourselves as we are to our pets.
