Jeanie, having been in similar circumstances with cats and horses, my first statement is: Stop beating yourself up. If you’d actually KNOWN something was wrong, i’m sure you’d have rushed to do everything you could to make things better.
from my side: one kitty who’d had eating problems for ages, but comments to vet about recurring vomiting were routinely shrugged off; one kitty-gone-blind who became self-destructive after being moved into a brand new house; one greatly-beloved horse who had a respiratory obstruction surgery discouraged by one vet (lazy bastard!) because it was “too risky” and the horse was “too old” (whereas a year later a better veterinary center said they did the same surgery twice a month and when did i want to schedule him?); one very aged pony who contracted West Nile Virus.
…
every one of them, i sat and pummeled myself for not taking better care of things; not noticing something was wrong sooner; not arguing harder with the doctors; just not being able to make everything all better for them.
but it wasn’t that i didn’t care. i cared so much. so very, very much. so much i’m sniffling even now, just remembering. but i had to face the fact eventually, for each of them, that life wasn’t what it had been, and wasn’t ever going to be that way again. the only one who died “naturally” was the kitty with the food problems. she died at the vet’s home; he’d taken her with him to keep an eye on her overnight while she was (finally) being seriously treated after getting thinner and weak.
the others… i had to make the hard decision that their lives were only going to degrade into continuous suffering if i didn’t step in for them. other kitty shouldn’t have to be continually treated for self-inflicted clawings on her head. my horse shouldn’t have to collapse in acute respiratory distress whenever the temperature got to be 50 degrees or more. my pony shouldn’t have to stagger, trying to keep his balance and remain on his feet, and STILL face a prospect of near-certain permanent neurological damage if he did manage to survive the viral infection.
it sucked.
it sucked so bad.
but it would suck as bad, or more, if all i could do is watch them continue to live in pain, or fear, or constant bewilderment as to why they couldn’t live like they used to.
some of them, i think, realized that it was time to go. some of them might have continued to fight on for as long as they could. my only consolation is that i think i spared them getting beaten down by their conditions, until all the fight had been taken out of them and they were more than ready to die.
i hope that was my mercy to them.
