Gift from a Client

“We outlive them. It’s sad, but that’s how things are designed.”

I have to say this fairly often to people who are dealing with terminal diseases in pets. We deal with the same sorts of diseases in animals that humans are afflicted with-  cancer, kidney failure, and heart disease for instance. Eventually, a lot of owners are faced with the decisions of whether or not to euthanize a pet, and when is the right time to do so. Honestly, the second one is the hard one for most owners that I talk to.

There was one particular dog that I remember from a few years back. The dog, Jake, had come in for weight loss, diarrhea, and vomiting. None of these is an unusual thing in and of itself, but Mrs. Jeffries said that something was off about Jake’s behavior as well.

As I started the physical exam on Jake, I saw that there was a bulge in his belly that wasn’t supposed to be there. I felt his abdomen, and immediately bumped into a mass the size of a baseball.  Given the location, Jake’s age, and his symptoms, this was more than likely going to be cancer. I talked it over with Mrs. Jeffries and she decided to do an X-ray of his abdomen and chest to see more about what was going on. The images we got didn't hold good news- there were spots in his lungs, and it appeared that the mass had entrapped a couple of different sections of his intestines as well.

Given the prognosis, the owner decided to try to keep Jake comfortable and give her family some time to say goodbye to him. We put him on medications for nausea and any pain that he might be feeling.  We knew that most likely we didn’t have long before his quality of life declined to the point that his owners would have to let him go.  I asked Mrs. Jeffries to call me if anything new developed and she took Jake home.

A couple of days later, I got a phone call from her.  Jake had stopped eating his dog food completely.  Mrs. Jeffries had some time to come to grips with the situation, and was as upbeat as she could be about things. She knew that he didn’t have long, but she wanted to make the most of that time.

“Dr. Bean, he really seemed interested in a McDonald’s hamburger that my daughter brought home last night.  I know that people food isn’t good for them, but do you think it would be O.K?”  Mrs. Jeffries asked.

“Considering the situation, I think that whatever you want to feed him is fine. It’s more important to me that he gets some calories in and for him to be happy than anything else. When my time comes, I want to go out with an empty Snickers wrapper in my hand.”  I replied.

She chuckled a little, and we said goodbye.  A few days after that, Jake’s situation became untenable and she decided that it was time to let him go.

The next week, I came in to work on a Monday morning, and found a wrapped gift box with my name on it lying on the counter in the clinic’s pharmacy area.  I asked my boss what was happening, and he said that he didn’t know- he had found it on the doorstep that morning when he got there.

Inside the box was a thank-you note from the Jeffries family, a picture drawn and colored by their daughter…. And a Snickers bar.

-RAB