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Pamilla's avatar

You are not fear mongering Celia. The ENEMY is. God Bless

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freelearner's avatar

I had a 19 year old cat who was clearly close to dying, drinking some water but no food, sleeping 23 hours a day, but still occasionally purring. She had caught a cold and had slowed down massively, we realized this was her natural end. She slept in a sort of cushioned nest on the chair beside my chair, contentedly. But as her breathing became irregular I started to wonder how I would know when she was fully gone?

So I called my vet to say, What do you recommend we look for just at the end of life to make sure we're still attending to her until she's truly passed away? They said, bring her in for euthanasia. I said no. She was a very anxious cat and there's no way I was putting her through that. So I said No, but please could you give me advice, like do I count breaths, do I need a stethoscope, do I just keep petting her until she's cold, what do I do? I was quite upset at this point and vulnerable, and they told me I should bring her in because she could be in pain. She was peacefully asleep, I again said no. The vet tech made me feel I was keeping my cat in pain needlessly and seemed disgusted with me before we hung up, and never offered any advice about natural end of life care. I don't think they even know what natural end of life care for an animal looks like. I felt judged and blamed at a really bad time, it was pretty awful.

Late that night my cat took a deep breath, gave a shudder and passed away. She had a good life and I stayed beside her for many hours on her last day, it was peaceful and loving and I'm so glad I ignored the vet.

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