Hang around a while. The support here is great and you sound like you
really need it.
Olive is beautiful and very grateful that you loved her and took good care
of her. Let her visit you and calm you.........just ask her to drop in one
night while you are asleep and receptive to her.
If you have men who will
exclude any of God's creatures
from the shelter of
compassion and pity, you will have men who
will deal likewise with
their fellow man.
St.
Francis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Megan Heikkinen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "felvtalk" <felvtalk@felineleukemia.org>
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 10:56 PM
Subject: Goodbye, Olive...
Unfortunately, I had to resort to PTS. It was probably the toughest
decision
of my life--or at least, the second toughest, the first being to decide to
let
Olive go in the first place. I spent most of the day yesterday and today
with
her, and it was miserable watching her fade away. My roommate and I sat by
her
for hours today. I kept thinking she was about to go, that she'd take one
last
looking like she'd already passed. At one point she looked like she was
really
gone, aside from the very slight rising of her chest, and then she rolled
over
and stretched out, almost as if she were alright... it was heartbreaking.
This morning I had thought about trying to save her, but in my heart I
feel
that it would have done more harm than good. Perhaps there was a slight
chance
I truly could have saved her and reversed the anemia--but I have a feeling
it
wouldn't have worked out that way, and I didn't want to put Olive through
more
suffering. She was too young to succumb to this, but if I had tried to
keep
her alive, I feel that it would've been out of my own selfish reasons. I
will
miss her so much, but I am glad that she went out easy. I am sorry that I
could not give her a longer life, but at least the one she had was a great
one. She was one of the best kitties ever.
The vet called me this afternoon asking for an update, and I told him of
my
decision, but that I still didn't know which way to go about it. He told
me
he'd be at the clinic for about 20 more minutes, so I told him I might
call
back. After discussing it with my roommate and boyfriend, I called back.
It
was terrible. But at least Olive got to enjoy a last meal of tuna before
parting this world. She'd not eaten in a while, and I was happy to see her
gobble up quite a bit of it.
Here are some photos of Olive, if you're interested:
http://web.utk.edu/~mheikkin/olive.JPG
http://web.utk.edu/~mheikkin/olive2.JPG
http://web.utk.edu/~mheikkin/babyolive.JPG
http://web.utk.edu/~mheikkin/kittens.JPG (Juniper on left, Kudzu on right)
She was not very photogenic, so I don't have many good photos of her...
Thank you guys for all of your help. I did not mean to come off as
ungrateful
in one of my previous emails. I was in so much pain, and so confused. I'm
feeling better now, because I know I did the right thing, as awful as it
was.
I wish you and all your kitties good luck. I may eventually leave this
list,
as I should hopefully no longer have use of it for some time being... But
I'll
stay on for a bit. Thank you, everyone, so much.
-Megan
