Our little Zoey, a 14 year old Pomeranian, was the light of our life–our precious little princess. She was diagnosed with cancer in late January of 2015, sailed through chemotherapy with no side effects, and was declared cancer free in September, 2015. But she wasn’t cancer free. Her specialists only looked at her lungs since that was almost certainly where the cancer would spread. But nobody explained the rules to her cancer; it spread instead to her liver and took it over so completely that by the time she was diagnosed, surgery was not an option and chemo considered marginally useful at best. She grew lethargic and stopped eating, and I did an online search to see about in-home euthanasia. I looked at Transitions, saw all the wonderful reviews of Melissa, and filled out the Quality of Life Calculator on her site to determine if it was time to let our baby go. There was no doubt that it was in fact time to let her go. I received a personal enote from Melissa just minutes after filling out the form.
Melissa came the next morning, explained the process exactly, and we said good-bye to our little princess. Zoey laid her little head on my lap and I stroked her throughout the process. My husband was right there, too. Zoey was a daddy’s girl–no question about it. We were and are heartbroken and are in agony now over this loss. Zoey was a rescue and we had her for only four years, but we made sure they were the very best four years they could be for her. And having her with us gave us four of the very best years of our own lives.
We cannot thank Melissa enough for her compassion and her expediency on coming over with such short notice. Years ago I had to have a kitty put to sleep. It was done in a vet’s office, and even though the staff was highly compassionate, it was very quick and I was traumatized by the experience. There was no sedation first. My kitty let out a huge final breath which I was warned would happen, but it was still awful and I can still hear it.
It wasn’t like that this time. Zoey was deeply anesthetized when the final dose came. I had one hand on her tummy and felt her heart stop, but she never moved. She looked no different than before her heart stopped. She just looked peacefully asleep.
We of course cried and continue to mourn her loss, but the point to all this is that this was as serene a passing as anyone could wish for==dying while sleeping. We would have had to let her suffer to let her die on her own. Having control over the situation is an almost miraculous thing to take advantage of. Although our own suffering has just begun with her loss, we are left with the knowledge that we gave her a peaceful sendoff. We were able to create a situation where she could in fact die in her sleep without having to suffer for days or weeks first.
Melissa took our baby with her, wrapped in a special blanket Melissa provided, and was later picked up by Paradise Passages, the crematory mentioned on Melissa’s site. All this happened on Thursday, November 5, 2015. November 7th, just two days later, little Zoey’s ashes were returned to us in a tasteful, carved cedar box. The crematory delivered the box to our house.
Thank you, Melissa. We would recommend you to absolutely anyone who discovers the time has come to say good-bye to their own precious baby.
