Veronica

Veronica is coming to the end of her life. I am not going to catalogue the myriad symptoms - it's too depressing and sad, and a majority of my small group of readers have gone through the process before and know them all by heart anyway. Disinterest in food, etc. etc.

We took her to the vet last Friday - a week and a day ago - and she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The vet gave us some pills to alleviate the fluid collecting around her heart, and she responded remarkably well. She is mobile, she is drinking water and using the litter box on her own; she appears content and apparently pain-free, she is no longer having trouble breathing thanks to the pills, and she is living. She enjoys being petted and still meets us at the door after work.

But she is not eating. It takes us multiple efforts every day to get a few teaspoons of food into her. She has lost a lot of weight. She spends almost all her hours - seemingly contentedly - on the heating grate in the dining room, her favourite spot. We've put water and a low litter box within a few steps of it. She's accessing both.

We are in a terrible gray zone - those of you who have walked to the end of life with pets understand this - of knowing when to make that phone call. We - we have never dealt with this before, personally. We had pets when I was a kid, but they all seemed to quietly die of old age in the middle of the night. Or they quietly disappeared and that was that. These are our first pets as adults, the first ones we have to take responsibility for at end of life.

We've talked about it endlessly for the past week. We are both in agreement that the moment she seems unhappy, or in discomfort, or distress, or in pain, we will end this. We are being extraordinarily kind to each other, and to Mojo, who is confused and worried as routines are broken. We are all in the terrible process of losing someone we love.

ronnie