| I can't say how one's money should or should not be spent. What I can say, however, is that when my dog was diagnosed with a terminal cancer, I could have requested and would have received treatment to prolong her life even though her cancer had already metastasized to her lungs. After seeing her xrays with my own eyes, I knew there was only one option for my girl.
After seeing those xrays, I called and made an appointment with her regular vet to euthanize her even before the specialist called to discuss treatment options. When he called, before he could say a word, I just asked him to listen. I told him that Luna had always been such a good dog, that it was very clear to me this was not something she could survive, that she had been through enough, and that I could not see any reason to subject her to treatments she had no way of understanding just so she could suffer and die anyway. I don't know what else I said, but when I finished he very quietly said to me, "If I had disagreed with anything you have just said to me, I would tell you so". That was the extent of our discussion over treatment options. I know they would have been offered had I not spoken up, because that's what a vet's obligation is - to treat the sick - and I needed to be Luna's advocate the best way I knew how. The best way I knew how was to make darn sure she did not have to bear any more pain from a disease that was ravaging her body and not something she could survive.
Not all cancers are alike. Some are survivable, others develop slowly so there is a good chance with proper treatment for a long stretch of good quality of life, and then there are the ones that ravage the body unmercifully. In order to determine the right thing to do for our dogs there are many things to take into consideration, and the only pat answer is to remember that our dogs cannot speak for themselves and we must do the best we can for them, because they are the ones that quite literally bear the consequences of our decisions.
It was not a financial decision for me, and the ethics involved had not to do with money, or lack thereof, but with what I owed in integrity to this dog I loved so dearly.  |