Several years ago I formulated my advanced directives describing my wishes for my care should I become incapable of making those choices on my own. I did this because I saw the confusion and heartache that arise when loved ones become incapacitated and did not want to impose that on my family and friends. Around that same time I was working on Preparing for the Loss of Your Pet (now available in an updated version, The Veterinarian’s Guide to Pet Loss )and realized that writing advanced directives for our pets made good sense, too. However, while I devoted a whole chapter to the subject and its many benefits, I didn’t realize just how beneficial it would be until my beloved old corgi, Violet, collapsed at my feet.
The primary advantage of preparing advanced directives, regardless of the species to whom they apply, is that they provide us with an opportunity to think the unthinkable under the best of circumstances. In a pet’s case, the more we work through our options and formulate a plan we believe best meets that animal’s and our own needs, the less likely we’ll make some snap decision in a moment of panic that we’ll later regret.
Because of my work, I can’t hide behind the romantic “unconditional love” notion any more than I can believe that love will somehow magically conquer all when the going gets truly rough. We also need knowledge of how to best fulfill any needs at that time as well as love to see us through. No matter how much love we shared, both Violet and I had limits relative to what we each consider a quality life. For her that included some form of play with her beloved rubber bone, riding in the car, hanging out watching the hummingbirds, butterflies and chipmunks outdoors, eating, and sleeping under or on top of my bed. For me it meant that she did not experience intractable pain or side-effects from any medication or other treatment that would undermine her ability to enjoy all this to an acceptable degree.
Although working through all this was difficult, knowing that I would so go to pieces the day anything serious happened to Violet to the point that coherent thought would be difficult spurred me on. What can I say? She’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs who compelled me to trade in my warm fuzzy view of the human-animal bond for one that recognizes its much greater power. She taught me that no tool can subdue adversity more effectively than humor and playfulness, and that there is nothing wrong with being a semi-solitary member of a species many believe must be social all the time. In our years together, she shared the very worst as well as some of the best with me and invariably served as a good example of how to handle both with grace.
Because of all this it didn’t surprise me that, when Violet collapsed and I rushed her to the clinic, I was so distraught I could barely speak and saw nothing thanks to the tears streaming down my face. All those years of veterinary training made it blindingly clear to me that whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. However, I also knew that she was among highly competent friends and that my inability to hold it together wasn’t helping her or them. So, difficult though it was, I left while they did the preliminaries. The “preliminaries” didn’t need to go much further than an x-ray of her abdomen that revealed a huge mass.
I won’t bore you with the details except to say that given the suddenness of the problem and her other symptoms, it was apparent that exploratory surgery was necessary. When the subject came up, much to my amazement I said the same thing I said when I’d first taken her in: “I do not want her to suffer.” I did not say, “You must do everything to save her because I absolutely cannot live without this dog. She’s the best dog I ever had. I don’t care what you have to do. I just can’t let her go.” Even as the tears come (again!) as I write those words because they have more than a grain of truth in them, I did not say them. Thanks to dry-running all this years ago when she was younger and healthy, I knew the right thing to say and I said it: “I do not want her to suffer.”
And so I told them to do the surgery and to remove the mass if possible and if there were no obvious signs of malignancy present. If this wasn’t the case, then I did not want her to wake up. Then, as we semi-solitary folk are wont to do, after I said that, I hung up the phone and collapsed on the floor next to Watson the Hound and sobbed.
Several hours later, I got the word: Violet was waking up sans spleen and the large mass on it. We won’t know for a week whether it’s malignant or not but we have a two out of three chance that it isn’t. As I write this two days after her surgery, she lies curled in the cat’s bed at my feet, her rubber bone a scant foot from her nose where she carefully placed it for safe-keeping, a 6″ stapled incision in her tummy. She has yet to miss a meal and gave me a dirty look when I went out this morning and didn’t take her. So far, so good.
I knew from my clients that writing advanced directives for pets, no matter how difficult for them, could pay big dividends in the end. However, I had no idea exactly how big those dividends could be until I was on the receiving end of them myself.
Several years ago I formulated my advanced directives describing my wishes for my care should I become incapable of making those choices on my own. I did this because I saw the confusion and heartache that arise when loved ones become incapacitated and did not want to impose that on my family and friends. Around that same time I was working on Preparing for the Loss of Your Pet (now available in an updated version, The Veterinarian’s Guide to Pet Loss )and realized that writing advanced directives for our pets made good sense, too. However, while I devoted a whole chapter to the subject and its many benefits, I didn’t realize just how beneficial it would be until my beloved old corgi, Violet, collapsed at my feet.
The primary advantage of preparing advanced directives, regardless of the species to whom they apply, is that they provide us with an opportunity to think the unthinkable under the best of circumstances. In a pet’s case, the more we work through our options and formulate a plan we believe best meets that animal’s and our own needs, the less likely we’ll make some snap decision in a moment of panic that we’ll later regret.
Because of my work, I can’t hide behind the romantic “unconditional love” notion any more than I can believe that love will somehow magically conquer all when the going gets truly rough. We also need knowledge of how to best fulfill any needs at that time as well as love to see us through. No matter how much love we shared, both Violet and I had limits relative to what we each consider a quality life. For her that included some form of play with her beloved rubber bone, riding in the car, hanging out watching the hummingbirds, butterflies and chipmunks outdoors, eating, and sleeping under or on top of my bed. For me it meant that she did not experience intractable pain or side-effects from any medication or other treatment that would undermine her ability to enjoy all this to an acceptable degree.
Although working through all this was difficult, knowing that I would so go to pieces the day anything serious happened to Violet to the point that coherent thought would be difficult spurred me on. What can I say? She’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime dogs who compelled me to trade in my warm fuzzy view of the human-animal bond for one that recognizes its much greater power. She taught me that no tool can subdue adversity more effectively than humor and playfulness, and that there is nothing wrong with being a semi-solitary member of a species many believe must be social all the time. In our years together, she shared the very worst as well as some of the best with me and invariably served as a good example of how to handle both with grace.
Because of all this it didn’t surprise me that, when Violet collapsed and I rushed her to the clinic, I was so distraught I could barely speak and saw nothing thanks to the tears streaming down my face. All those years of veterinary training made it blindingly clear to me that whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. However, I also knew that she was among highly competent friends and that my inability to hold it together wasn’t helping her or them. So, difficult though it was, I left while they did the preliminaries. The “preliminaries” didn’t need to go much further than an x-ray of her abdomen that revealed a huge mass.
I won’t bore you with the details except to say that given the suddenness of the problem and her other symptoms, it was apparent that exploratory surgery was necessary. When the subject came up, much to my amazement I said the same thing I said when I’d first taken her in: “I do not want her to suffer.” I did not say, “You must do everything to save her because I absolutely cannot live without this dog. She’s the best dog I ever had. I don’t care what you have to do. I just can’t let her go.” Even as the tears come (again!) as I write those words because they have more than a grain of truth in them, I did not say them. Thanks to dry-running all this years ago when she was younger and healthy, I knew the right thing to say and I said it: “I do not want her to suffer.”
And so I told them to do the surgery and to remove the mass if possible and if there were no obvious signs of malignancy present. If this wasn’t the case, then I did not want her to wake up. Then, as we semi-solitary folk are wont to do, after I said that, I hung up the phone and collapsed on the floor next to Watson the Hound and sobbed.
Several hours later, I got the word: Violet was waking up sans spleen and the large mass on it. We won’t know for a week whether it’s malignant or not but we have a two out of three chance that it isn’t. As I write this two days after her surgery, she lies curled in the cat’s bed at my feet, her rubber bone a scant foot from her nose where she carefully placed it for safe-keeping, a 6″ stapled incision in her tummy. She has yet to miss a meal and gave me a dirty look when I went out this morning and didn’t take her. So far, so good.
I knew from my clients that writing advanced directives for pets, no matter how difficult for them, could pay big dividends in the end. However, I had no idea exactly how big those dividends could be until I was on the receiving end of them myself.