This week: tough decisions
Life is full of tough choices, but fortunately for most people they don't involve life and death. In the medical profession things are different; doctors are featured on television shows making life-and-death decisions all the time. Just watching such medical action can be hair-raising and adrenaline-inducing. Vets are featured less on TV here, but overseas the life of vets has proven a successful formula for myriad TV dramas and educational and reality shows.
One book and TV series that inspired thousands of vets and wannabe vets around the world is All Creatures Great and Small by Dr Alf Wight, more commonly known as James Herriot. It is a great read and for me it is interesting to see what the profession was like just after the second world war. It's amazing how much has changed and how much has remained the same.
I am often faced with life-and-death decisions. Some are easy, as we often have limited choices. Some will lead to death, euthanasia; from a medical professional's point of view, this may be the best possible decision for a hopeless situation, but from a pet owner's perspective it is a daunting decision.
Just yesterday I was presented with a poodle called Henry that has been struggling with a tumour in the back of the mouth for six months. At first we cut out the mass, which was making swallowing food difficult, but the laboratory report came back with bad news - the mass was invasive malignant cancer.
There was no way we could completely cut out the mass due to its location and even chemotherapy was not an option because it was ineffective on this sort of tumour. Three months after the initial discovery and surgery, we had to repeat the surgery and reduce the mass so Henry could eat. But after six months and two surgeries, the mass had come back with a vengeance and it had extended up Henry's nose.
Since Henry wasn't able to breathe through his nostrils, every time the owner fed Henry liquids and he tried to breath through his open mouth, he would choke. It was clear we couldn't maintain Henry's quality of life any further. We had successfully extended his life for six months but his time had run out. It was a tough decision to say the least, but Henry's dedicated owners decided to end his life, which was slowly turning miserable.