My Husband Better Have The Balls To Club Me Like A Baby Seal

About a year and a half ago, I had to put down my cat. My first kitty, my Amadeus, he was one amazing little guy. Anyone who isn't a cat person will never understand, but he and I had a very special bond. He started to get sick just before Christmas. He was only seven, and should have been the picture of health. The vet couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. He was hurting, and vomiting, and listless. It was agonizing to see him in that state, even just to think about it now, it still makes my skin crawl. They ran every test they could think of, and short of cutting him open to poke around his insides, there was no way to make a firm diagnosis. The vet said that in the absence of any other diagnosis, it was most likely cancer of the liver. Cancer. My sweet and perfect Pookey was sick and there was nothing in the world I could do to fix him. I truly felt like I had lost my best friend, and it was like being in a void where I couldn't feel or hear or breathe.

The vet gave him some meds to bring back his appetite, had some fluids pushed into him, and I took him home weeping like a little bitch. The vet said the meds have him feeling much better for a day or two, but I had to think about the inevitable...putting him down. Those last two days I was with him were wonderful and awful. Jesus Christ, I am sobbing even as I write this. I realize that what I am about to say will sound ludicrous to anyone who doesn't bond with their furry companions like I do...well, tough shit. Deal with my pain for a moment. I played with him, I held him, I slept with him curled up behind my knees, stroking his soft, silky fur for hours. I told him how much I loved him, how much he meant to me, how much I was going to miss him. I said my goodbyes and prayed to any god that would listen to give him a painless death and take care of him when I no longer could.

It...was...EXCRUCIATING.

I wanted to die with him. I would curl up on the floor in the bathroom and cry for hours. I would cry for so long that I thought my soul had just seeped out of my body. Eventually my wails and sobs would fade into a deep, heart breaking moan and I would fall asleep feeling completely numb and exhausted.

I woke up and decided that I would not, under any circumstances, accept this. He was my Amadeus, and I had to fight for him. I had to make someone understand that he could not die! I drove to the humane society and asked to speak with the vet again. The vet that had performed all of his tests came out to meet with me. I sat him down and explained that this was just unacceptable. Something had to be wrong. Someone screwed up the tests. Maybe they were reading something wrong. Maybe he just needed medication or shots for the rest of his life but he would be otherwise the spritely kitty he had always been. I was resolute to be very serious, and above all, I would not cry. If I didn't cry, this wasn't happening, and I could make this all better. The vet was extremely patient in the face of my insanity, and he was incredibly sympathetic. He explained again, that it just happens sometimes. Sometimes perfectly healthy cats fall ill, and there is nothing we can control but the amount of suffering they endure. I asked if there was any way we could keep giving him the meds I got the day before, continue to keep him hydrated, how much more time would he have? How much more time would *I* have with him? He said that Amadeus was already in pain, that he was most likely trying very hard to hide his pain from me. I had no doubt that he was right. Amadeus was always empathetic and he had the uncanny ability to know when I was hurting, and he would literally pet me and try to console me. Amazing creature. The vet said that the cancer would start to shut his organs down, the pain would increase and he would be unable to do anything at all. He would just lay there and die in silent agony. My resolution to be very serious and not cry under any circumstance was shot to shit. I lost control of my emotions and I just sobbed. This complete stranger put his arm around me and just let me wail.

I finally got myself under some semblance of composure, and I asked him what the process of euthanasia entailed. He explained what they would do, and what they believe it to be like for the animal. I nodded my head and was able to whisper that I would bring him in the following morning. The day before Christmas Eve.

I thanked this man for enduring my emotional outburst, and taking time out from his hectic schedule to sit with me. He said something that has stuck with me to this day. "This is one of the hardest things you will have to do, I know that. But I believe that it takes more love to put an animal down one week too soon, than one day too late". I drove home thinking about that. It was torturing me that the meds and fluids had made Amadeus like his old self. He was giving me cuddles and running around with my other kitty and his appetite was back. The thought of putting him down when he seemed so alive was just so hard to reconcile. But I eventually understood, and agreed with the vet. Amadeus was going to have maybe a week or two of feeling good, but the pain was going to set in, and he probably wouldn't let me see it. He would suffer for my benefit. Then he would crash, and crash hard. There was just no way in hell I was going to let my baby go through that. No way in hell.

I drove home and really prepared myself to spend the last remaining hours I had on this earth with Amadeus.

I am an emotional wreck writing this part of my story, so I am going to wrap it up before my husband offers me any little 'relaxation' pills.

I'll allow you to imagine what it was like the next day. Having to part with him. Say my goodbyes. Just promise whatever you imagine, you will multiply that by ten. Only then might you have an inkling of what I went through.

There comes a point in every life that it must cease to exist. It is a natural fact, and it is unchangeable. No one wants to think about it, well, unless you like that sort of thing, and certainly no one wants to think about someone they love dearly meeting their end. It makes me think about the woman that lives in the apartment below us. She is the mother of my landlord, and was probably once a very lovely woman. Now, she is so senile, she probably would believe her live-in nurse is Joseph Stalin. She has suffered several strokes, is unable to do much of anything on her own, she is in diapers and on tons of medication. Sometimes, I hear her wailing and moaning through our old heating vents. Just wailing for no reason at all. It has, at times, reminded me of my nights curled up on the bathroom floor. It makes my blood go cold. I feel for this woman. I feel for the pain she must be in. I fear that she experiences short moments of clarity, which only serve to remind her that she is otherwise in a constant state of infancy. She is no longer the adult she was, with a bright mind and a history. She is a shell that is just waiting to die.

I wish someone would love her enough to end her misery. Euthanasia on humans is a very touchy subject, very taboo in our culture. I think that is idiotic and blind. Is it that we are too terrified to think of our own mortality? Is it that we are convinced that a deity will strike us down if we dare end the suffering of a loved one? Is it that we believe it is murder, no matter the wishes of the damned? I know plenty of cultures have incorporated euthanasia as a perfectly natural part of existence. It is not against god, or against mans' invulnerability to do what is best for someone we love, who is in pain. It is just another phase of life, and therefore accepted.

It's too bad we don't have more avenues of relief for loved ones who suffer incurable and debilitating sickness. I can't imagine living a life, struggling to survive, raising a family and filling a home with love and memories only to have it all wiped away by a stroke or dementia. I can't imagine suffering the pain of end-stage cancer, watching my body shut down while I lie in a hospital bed unable to stop it. I would never want that for myself, and certainly not for my family. I would not want them to see me in that state, not only because it is horrible to watch someone die slowly, but because it wouldn't even be me anymore.

If I am on a constant morphine drip, in and out of consciousness, mind hazy and uncomprehending, that is not me. That is not the vibrant woman who fought for and earned everything she had in life. If I am severely senile and unable to remember what it means to use a bathroom, I am no longer the woman who tried to make everyone she knew laugh. All the wonderful, horrible, sweet, loving, bitchy, neurotic, tender, forgiving parts of me would be buried and gone, only my body remaining.

I have talked to my husband about my wishes to never live like that. To never have to endure being here but gone. To never have to know in the afterlife that he suffered so horribly for me. He tries to shrug it off, "don't talk about thinks like that" or "I don't want to think about it". Those excuses don't fly with me. I married him and he vowed to always do everything possible to make me happy. He vowed to always love me more than anything else in this world, to always take care of me. I know lots of people would think love is enduring someone elses pain. Caring for them endlessly while they are dying and demented. Showing them the true meaning of "in sickness and in health". My husband, in his fear of losing me, would probably foolishly agree.

Well baby, I got news for you...you married a girl that belives true love is clubbing me like a baby seal when the time comes. I love you more than anyone has ever loved someone, but so help me all that is holy and pure, if you leave me on this earth to rot and wander the house in my crusty robe singing The Brady Bunch theme song, I will permeate the walls of dimensions and reality to haunt your ass straight into the bowels of insanity and beyond.