Do we allow more compassion for pets than people?

This is not the post that I want to be writing. It’s not personal finance related although it is related to happiness. Not because these are happy stories, but because the options that we have or don’t have at the end of our lives do have an impact on our happiness and that of our families. There is no BLUF and there are no action steps in this article. This one is purely from the heart.

I’ve talked about how focusing on things in my control has helped me be a much happier person. In this instance, unfortunately, I’m going to reflect on my experiences with the one thing in life that’s usually outside our control: when we die.

It’s with great sadness that I write this after losing our beloved dog Oreo of almost 13 years to nasal cancer. Through the pain and struggle of watching him degrade over the last two months my mind couldn’t help but to compare it to the last major loss in my life. The loss of my mom to ovarian cancer in 2014 at 63 years old.

Both, I loved with all my heart.

Both, I lost to cancer.

In both cases all family members wanted them to pass as peacefully and painlessly as possible. But there was one, glaring difference between the two situations that I just can’t shake from my brain.

The loss of our dog, Oreo

Oreo has been my first and only pet. My mom was allergic to pet dander so we never had a dog or a cat growing up. Despite always enjoying animals when I went to the homes of friends and family I never made the connection when I had my own place that I should get one. Fortunately, my ex-wife wanted a dog. In August of 2018 after purchasing our home we adopted this adorable 10 week old lab mix rescue that we named Oreo.

For the next 12 years Oreo was an integral part of my life and then the life of my now wife Mrs. MFI. Everyday when I came home from work he would be there on the back of the couch like a cat, waiting for us to get home.

He went on vacations to Florida (a 24 hour drive) and Virginia with us. A few years later he was my rock when I was going through my divorce. He brought Mrs. MFI comfort, companionship and security when I was away on business trips. We aren’t having children so he was truly our fur baby.

He was in great health his whole life. He amazingly ran 12 trail miles with me on his 12th birthday while I was training for a race. Unfortunately the thing about cancer is that it comes out of nowhere. In January 2021 at 12 1/2 years old he woke up with some mucus out his nose. I assumed he had a cold or an infection that antibiotics would fix. More testing confirmed the worst diagnosis I could have hoped for: nasal cancer.

Things started getting worse slowly but then his decline accelerated. In February he started bleeding from one nostril and it wouldn’t stop. He had an episode where a blood clot let loose and he started sneezing blood everywhere. We tried many medications over the next month to reduce the bleeding and ensure he wasn’t feeling pain but the bleeding episodes continued. They would just get worse and more frequent. There is no real option for nasal cancer treatment in dogs. It’s in too sensitive of a spot to operate and radiation, if it’s even possible in your part of the world, is very expensive.

As things got worse we had a new nightmare scenario: deciding if and when to euthanize Oreo. It’s such a bizarre and tough situation. I have the ability to take away his pain, but I also am trying to let him live as long as I think he has a good quality of life. On one hand I’m grateful for the means to painlessly take away his pain by ending his life. On another hand, it saddled us with the hardest decision that you’ll ever have to make for your pet. People said “you’ll know when it’s time”, but I never felt like I did. I second guessed the decision right until the end when he peacefully was euthanized by our sides on March 19th, 2021.

The loss of my mom to cancer

I feel like if there is a stereotypical mom, my mom was it. She wasn’t a celebrity, a professional at anything or a financial success. She came from a middle class family in NY and was raised very religiously which influenced her personality a great deal. Her profession was either homemaker or religious education teacher during her life after marrying my dad. She took care of our family and was the model of a loving and supportive person. She just had a quiet poise about her with an uncanny ability to stay calm and composed no matter what the situation. I can’t recall any instance where she would gossip about others or when she lost her temper.

My dad had a very successful career allowing my parents to save and invest well during their lives. They were fortunate to retire in their late 50’s and moved 9 hours away to Virginia when I was in my late 20’s. We loved each other but I didn’t make the effort to see them more than once or twice a year at most.

At 62 years old my mom started having strange health issues which was unusual. She didn’t smoke her whole life and only had alcohol during holidays. She wasn’t big on exercise but through her diet maintained a slender figure her whole life. These issues were eventually diagnosed as ovarian cancer. Over the following year she would try a variety of treatments to battle the cancer and the ancillary complications that it caused. She never could beat it though.

In June of 2014 she was hospitalized and I flew down to see her. I thought I was going to see her and hear about the next treatment decision. I was blindsided when at her hospital bedside she told me she was done. She was tired of fighting and was ready to die.

I’m not sure how she was able to be so calm about it. So matter of fact in accepting her own now near term mortality. Maybe she was just holding it together because she saw it hit me like a truck. From her bedside I sobbed hysterically as I buried my head into her stomach. “No, no, no…this can’t be” or something to that effect came out of my mouth.

Our whole lives we never know exactly when we’re going to die. Usually we don’t even have a ballpark idea. The moment you know with certainly that death is on a near term timeline everything changes. Time stopped for me at first, then it accelerated very quickly know that every second was closer to her near term last breath. Her wish was to die at home so arrangements were made for a bed to be setup in the living room at home.

I remember the next week feeling like a blur although I can’t tell you exactly how long it took for her to die. I think it was about a week, but I can’t be sure. She had an IV for hydration and morphine to keep her comfortable. She could play cards, speak and had mental capacity at first. She could drink and maybe she could eat a little?

Until this experience I no idea exactly how someone dies when cancer is in them and is left unchecked. She stopped being able to drink. Eventually she couldn’t talk or really communicate. We wet her lips with a sponge to keep them moist because she couldn’t lick them and her mouth was dry. She’s not in pain but she’s essentially dehydrating and starving to death in front of my eyes. I remember being shocked by how thin and boney her hand had become when I went to hold it.

Surrounded by family she passed away in June of 2014.

Reflecting on the two events

It wasn’t until Oreo was dying and we had to decide on euthanizing that I began reflecting on the parallels of these situations. Something immediately hit me that started to make me well up with anger inside.

When my mom died of cancer she essentially had two options: 1. Continuing fighting with other treatments 2. Die “naturally” by starvation in a location of her choosing. I suppose she could have attempted suicide but she would never even consider an option not provided by a doctor. There was no option to be euthanized pain free available to her. It was pain through fighting or pain through dying.

How frustrating to live your whole life in freedom only to denied the ability to make a decision about your death. I know this topic is controversial because many religions would consider this suicide. Is a “natural” death really better? Is it better to force a person to choose between options of pain and pain? Or worse yet, attempt non-medical suicide that brings a whole host of potential bad outcomes including risking failure or the trauma of your family finding you?

I previously wrote that my superpower was focusing on things that I could control in my life. When my mom died in 2014 only 2 states had a physician assisted suicide option. That’s grown to 9 which is encouraging and also shows that this is something that people want. I hope that some beliefs are set aside and we recognize that some people want the option to avoid pain when their death is certain. I know I want that option. Why do our pets get more options than people?

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