Bodie has been up since about 3:30 this morning. I've been up most of that time. He has been trying (unsuccessfully) to urinate. He gets drops out that are fairly bloody. It may be time to start thinking about euthanasia.
The vet said he has a ping pong ball size mass in his bladder. When asked how big his bladder is empty, she said, "ping pong ball size".
I've done some reading on euthanasia trying to get a feel for when is the right time. If you ask my father, it's when the animal no longer is productive, you ask my mother, it's not until the last ounce of life can be eked out of the animal. I found a Dummies article on how to proceed as well as a fairly good article on making the decision. However, in the end, there are no hard and fast rules to help you determine if now is the right time. Obviously, some now's are more apparent the others, but with Bodie, I'm not sure.
If he is going to spend several hours trying to urinate every time he needs to go, then I think it is time. Now I have to convince the family. Oh, to make things worse, it's Thing 2's birthday (not that that in and of itself is bad), but it is also two days till Christmas. Do I make an animal suffer so as not to mar an otherwise joyous time of the year?
Posted by joat at December 23, 2004 06:08 AM