I am not sure that a chronically sore bottom is a valid justification for euthanasia.
Our vet seems to think that it is, which makes me very glad that she is a vet and not a GP, given that haemorrhoids are a fairly predictable feature of most people’s old age.
Nevertheless, our visit this afternoon was very solemn. I had got some Difficult Decisions to make, she assured me.
Guffy was lying prone on the table, her eyes closed and barely breathing, trying her best to hide underneath the towel I had brought with us as a sort of combination of a restraint and a nappy.
I had to scrub this out with bleach in the back yard afterwards.
I said that she was an active, lively cat, and although I was quite sure her bottom was fairly sore after a lifetime of diarrhoea, it did not seem to be bothering her very much. Indeed, on her first visit to the dreaded vet, when he stuck the first needles in her, we were both astounded at her lack of reaction, and concluded that she must have a remarkably high pain threshold.
The vet said that this was not the point and it was not fair to keep a creature with a sore bottom alive when you could kill it and get another.
I might have paraphrased that a bit.
Of course, I am perfectly well aware that Guffy is a less than ideal house pet. Indeed, I am a less than ideal housewife, and so in no position to throw stones, but I do not want to give up on her just yet.
The vet gave her a steroid injection which she hoped would reduce the swelling. We all hoped it would reduce the swelling, except probably Guffy whose hopes, if they could have been visualised, were probably along the lines of wishing the vet would turn into a small spider who could be pursued around the table and finally crunched up, by means of revenge.
She really, really does not like the vet.
The vet said that she was probably upset because of the dogs in the waiting room, and offered to let us out at the back. I explained that Guffy is indifferent to dogs, and would not be in the least alarmed by the charging about and barking that was going on in the waiting room, charging about and barking being a fairly predictable feature of home life. I did not like to explain that her dislike was entirely personal, in case the vet’s feelings were hurt, she is, after all, trying her hardest to make Guffy better, but it is personal all the same.
She extended her resentment to me when we got home, and dived off to hide under the workbench in Mark’s shed, whilst I rushed around hauling the washing off the line, because it had started to rain whilst we were out.
She will not come at all when I call her now, not even for a piece of chicken.
Apart from the excursion to the vet, I have spent so much of the day cooking that I have not even got as far as the stairs to the attic to continue with my curtain project.
I have made some more burritos.
It turns out that Oliver and Emily like burritos as well, so despite having made more than a dozen last week, there were none left, and the supply needed to be replenished.
I made a dozen more, fourteen more, actually, which I hope will last us until next week when Mark gets home, and with good fortune, if any of us eat other things in the meantime, there might be some left for Mark as well.
This took me all day. It is a long job, with a lot of washing up, but it is done now, and I have got taxi picnic burritos for the rest of the week.
Curtains tomorrow, with any luck.
