Not the easiest decision

My friend does a lot of things for a disabled lady and when the going gets tough, I help her out.

Our disabled lady is in a foster care home right now and has been for five months or so.  Her husband is disabled and is in a different foster care home.  In the meantime, she has been paying rent on her apartment so their cats would have their home.  It was the best she knew to do for them.

Tuesday, my friend showed me a picture she had taken of one of the kitties, and we decided that Lady needed to make a decision about what to do for kitty and that we would meet at her care home Wednesday to discuss it with her.

Friend called me and told me she was going to stop by the apartment before we met to see if she could get a better photo of kitty.  When I arrived, she called me into her vehicle to see the new picture.  This picture showed that Lady no longer had a decision to make.  Kitty had to be in care immediately.  It was now just a matter of telling Lady the hard stuff in the middle of a lot of other hard stuff.

Oh mercy.  We left her a very grieved woman, but before we left to take care of kitty she gave permission to euthanize if that was best. 

We got to the apartment and got kitty into the pet carrier, but not before I saw how much worse the kitty was than the picture showed.  I took her to the vet who wasn't really thrilled about having her and Vet kept mentioning about other cats scheduled for surgery and she couldn't do anything but give her antibiotics.  What?  Automatic surgery? Really? How about just looking at kitty and telling me what your opinion is about her outlook?  Isn't that an option?  (I do not like that Vet.)

Kitty's prognosis was pretty grim so I had to make the call to have her put to sleep.  I called my friend with the news and a short discussion about money sources ensued.  She called Lady and I gave the go ahead to put kitty to sleep. 

If I never have to do that again for someone, it will be way too soon.  I woke up a couple of times in the night thinking that maybe I had made the wrong decision.  Well, after talking myself down from doubt, I do know, in the corner of head, that I did the right thing, the compassionate thing.

It's hard enough when you have to choose to euthanize your own cat.  Let's make it worse by leaving a disabled woman grieving for her loss and wondering if she was the reason kitty had to die.

Ugh.  Sometimes, compassion is very rewarding; sometimes it stinks.