10/15/04--on death & dying

I remember when I took my psychology class senior year in high school (which was waaaaay longer ago than I'd like to admit) studying the work of Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who had written a book called "On Death & Dying".....now for a high school kid its pretty heavy stuff, but over the last 25 years, some of the things taught back then in the classroom of Dr Terry Blaies (how I remember that is totally beyond me) have stayed with me.  The book was about not only learning to cope with death, or the loss of a loved one, but also how the person facing death dealt with the subject.  It really was an interesting discussion, if a tad morbid.  I was thinking about that earlier in the week when I learned my Uncle Ken had died.  I was told that his doctors had advised him a couple of months ago that his heart condition was no longer treatable and that he had 2 to 3 months left to live.
What does a person think when told that?  I mean, deep within the recesses of your heart and mind....what do you think about?  Do you accept it with grace and dignity, do you vow to not go quietly into night....how does someone come to grips with the finality of it all?  I suppose it must take a great deal of courage to face it...and to be the spouse or son or daughter of someone facing it.  Can you truly say everything that needs to be said?  Can you truly make all the arrangements? 

We faced our own version of finality the other evening.  Kim first got Trigger when she was only 15 years old.  He had been with her, sleeping at the foot of her bed, through high school, college, and two marriages.  But on Tuesday night, Trigger the now 24 year old cat (yep, 24 years old!) began to go into renal (kidney) failure.
The doctor told Kim that while she could begin to give him certain antibiotics and fluids, that it was probably inevitable.  He told her that Trigger was the equivalent of a 110 yr old man in a hospice ward.  The question was not if, but when.  And so Kim had to make the most difficult decision that a pet owner can ever make.....to put down an animal that had been with her longer than anyone or anything other than her father & brother.  Kim worried that doing this made her a bad person.  Nothing could be further from the truth, the doctor said.  Doing this shows courage and compassion for an animal who's time had come (and in the case of a 24 yr old cat---who probably well exceeded his time).  I told her of the worst day of my life.  The day I found my beloved Lady floating in the pool, either dead of a heart attack or drowning--because her cataracts had rendered her almost blind and her athritis had made her mainly a cripple old dog, but who I couldn't let go of.  Who I didn't have the strength and the ability to say goodbye too, even though I had her with me for almost 16 years.  I told her that I had failed Lady by not allowing her to go with dignity....and that she shouldn't fail Trigger the same way.  And as I told her this, and reminded myself again of Lady....I cried again.  Its been 17 years...and I still can't talk about it without becoming emotional.  It's something that I wouldn't wish on anyone, especially someone I love as much as Kim.  I told her that she didn't want to come home in a day or two and find Trigger laying dead on the floor, having gone through another couple of days of the misery and discomfort that kidney failure brings.  Kim told the doctor that her own mother had died from kidney failure, and it offered her a unique insight into the situation.  She remembered how miserable her mother had become towards the end.
So, with great sadness, she showed the courage to euthanise Trigger.  The doctor was very compassionate and explained everything--that Trigger would simply feel as though he was going to sleep.  And after saying her goodbyes, the doctor freed Trigger from his misery and discomfort.  He jumped up for just a second, whether from the prick of the needle or some last grasp at life...and then a clearness came into his eyes, as if he took one final glance at the world....and saw the person who had been with him on his journey of 24 years.  There with him at the very end.

RIP Trigger....the 24 year old cat.

Jeff