"What If"
I just lost my cat of almost 13 years yesterday. She was slowly declining, from what I assumed was old age, then all at once tanked and we had to put her down in order to prevent more suffering. The vet initially tossed out some suggestions about what happened and what they could do to potentially help. He was also honest that the stress of doing bloodwork or treatment might kill her outright instead of helping. I believe he was thinking I had come in hoping they would save her. However, I knew deep down that it was time, and that I would be going home with an empty carrier.
Unfortunately my brain has been running with the vet's suggestions, and wondering "what if":
What if I took her to the vet sooner?
What if I had paid more attention?
What if I had poured all the money into bloodwork and treatments and medications, and they could have saved her?
I considered cancelling my therapy appointment I had scheduled for today, but figured it was probably best to go, even if I ugly cried my way through it. And I did cry. Multiple times in one hour. I'm still crying now. I cried especially when my therapists dogs interrupted the video call, because she still has her pets to love on and I don't. But my therapist helped me re-frame my thoughts, and I wanted to share her wisdom here before it gets swallowed by sadness, because I know some of the folks here are having the same thoughts:
"What if" questions assume that we live in a black and white world, where a making a different choice results in a different outcome. But that's not reality. We can go back and change everything, and still wind up with the same outcome. We could even go back and make things worse. Think of all the time travel movies where someone goes back in time to change something, and it has a catastrophic effect on other things. We wouldn't wish that on anyone!
What if I took her to the vet sooner? They might have recommended putting her down right then, and I would have had even less time with her.
What if I had paid more attention? She still might have died around the same time, even if things were caught sooner. It also could have been a catastrophic event that caused her to go downhill so quickly, which would have happened regardless of whether I saw and interpreted her symptoms differently. The vet didn't know, and neither do I.
What if I had poured all the money into bloodwork and treatments and medications, and they could have saved her? Like the vet said, the stress of testing and treatment could have killed her. She would have died alone with random people at the vet's office after being poked and prodded and sedated, instead of quietly slipping into sleep with me by her side. Or, maybe the treatment prolonged her life a bit, but she spent a few months in pain before dying, instead of two days.
All this to say, even if you or I as a pet owner did things differently, that wouldn't have guaranteed us more time with our little loves. Part of loving a pet is knowing somewhere in the back of our minds that we'll have to let them go someday. The only thing we can do is love them while we can, and let that love evolve into grief when the time comes.