GOODBYE, MAX

MAX

2001 - 30/01/2014

Well, this wasn't expected. I'd booked in Tilly, the small grey kitten-cat because her diarrhoea problem just wasn't going away. Max hadn't been eating too well this week and when he threw up his cooked ham yesterday morning and started retching bile in the afternoon I thought I'd best take him along as well just to get him checked out. The vet found a lump the size of a satsuma in his gut at a place that was hard to get to. So: palliative treatment to keep him going longer or put him to sleep. Obviously I chose, not without some deliberation and discussion with the vet, the latter. As the vet said, just because we can prolong life doesn't always mean that we should. My first rule is: never let an animal suffer. And that would inevitably happen to Max. I wanted him to go with dignity.

And he did.

He patiently accepted the vet shaving his leg and just as patiently, without the slightest struggle, let her insert the needle into his vein. Because his veins had contracted it took a second injection in the other leg before he finally slipped away. I stroked him and spoke to him throughout and finally kissed him goodbye. 

I hadn't had him long, taking him in after his elderly owner, whom got him from us several years ago, went into a home. He spent all his time in my living room, mostly sitting on the arms of the settee or chairs, often next to where I was sitting so I could stroke him and sometimes he'd step down and settle on my knee.

Now there's a Max-shaped space in my living room and I miss him.