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Pet's death need not be a smaller version of human drama and trauma By
Vicky Campbell
"Come on, Sweetie. We need to go to the doctor for your chemotherapy. I know, Honey, but we need to go. I know it hurts, but if we don't go, the cancer will take over and I can't lose you. That's it. You're going. Get in your cage." With the medical technology that has become readily available, many people who are attached to their pets go to great lengths to prolong their pets' lives as much as possible. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, X-rays, breathing tubes, shots and more are employed to keep dogs, cats, birds and other animals alive. This need for human beings to hold on to their loved ones to the bitter end is something many people question. Kelly Arnold, a pain management nurse at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, said the medical profession as a whole refuses to give up when it should and ends up inflicting agony on humans and now animals, as well. "The way we are in society, we don't want to acknowledge death is coming," she said. "The signs have been there that they're ready to go, but there's a lot of denial in the medical field surrounding death." Arnold, who is a die-hard pet lover, said she would never subject her dog, Lukie, to that kind of torture, just as she would never subject her husband to it. The pain service at LDS Hospital functions not only as a pain management team for patients having surgery or who have been in accidents, but one of its primary functions is managing pain at the end of patients' lives. Arnold sees patients every day who are able to die in comfort. The last months, weeks, days and hours of their lives are spent with their loved ones -- not being incapacitated with pain. Why can't that work for pets? A new movement in the pet world says it can and it should. It's called Pawspice, and it's a type of hospice care for animals. It was developed by Alice Villalobos, medical director of the VCA Coast Animal Hospital and Cancer Center in Hermosa Beach, Calif. In the Salt Lake Tribune, Villalobos was quoted as saying, "Just because a pet has cancer is not reason enough to euthanize it. Cancer is not an automatic death sentence." By treating the animal's pain, Villalobos said one in eight of the pets she treats live into the next year, and one out of every four pets lives its natural life span, according to the article. Arnold said she would readily use Pawspice if her dog were to become terminally ill. One thing she would never consider, though, is giving her dog chemotherapy or putting her through other medical procedures when there is no hope for recovery or improving her quality of life. "It's different than with humans," she said. "Humans can give consent." But with animals, they don't understand what is happening to them. They don't understand why they are hurting, why their owner lets doctors stick needles in them or why their hair falls out after having chemotherapy. Arnold said the best thing to do for pets is to comfort them until they can no longer be comforted, and then euthanize them. She said if the medical profession could adopt this principle and relate it to humans, we would all be better off. "Humans should never suffer when they die," she said. "Over 80 percent of humans die in the hospital and most of them die in pain. Only 20 percent die in the home." The way humans torture each other medically, even past the point where there's hope, is tragic, Arnold said. "Humans die poorly," she said. In the medical profession, nurses and doctors consistently refuse to allow patients to die easily. There comes a point when medical treatment is futile, she said. At that point treatment should stop and the focus should switch to treating the patient's comfort level. However, this rarely happens, she said. The body has a natural hormone that is released when a person is dying. The hormone makes th There is a very practical purpose for this, she said, but that purpose is undermined by medical professionals. When the body stops demanding food and drink, body fluids decrease, making it easier to breath. When patients are given nutrients through their veins or by putting a tube down their esophagus, not only is it uncomfortable because they're not hungry, but it actually makes the person's final breaths labored and extremely painful. It is interfering with nature, she said. "We need to draw the line," Arnold said, with humans and animals alike. That's the purpose of Pawspice. It provides pets with the love and comfort any human would want when they die. It allows the pet and the owner the time to come to grips with death.
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