{"id":176,"date":"2014-02-04T19:11:23","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T19:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/?p=176"},"modified":"2014-02-04T19:14:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T19:14:51","slug":"helping-a-sweet-friend-let-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/04\/helping-a-sweet-friend-let-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping a sweet friend let go"},"content":{"rendered":"

After sinking her claws into life following her Christmas stroke, Mocha has been loosening her grip. In the last five days, her internal fire has dimmed to a pilot light, and she is lost in the strange haze of end of life.<\/p>\n

The vet speculates that her renal failure is shutting down her brain as well, because she has been howling mournfully – several times an hour – and wandering around the house like an Alzheimer’s patient. She no longer wants food, so I have been injecting diluted baby food into her mouth with a syringe – after which she stares at me with baleful eyes and hobbles slowly away. And she has developed the curious habit of putting her front legs into the tall water bowl, up to her wee armpits, dipping her mouth down to the water level.<\/p>\n

When I told this to Dr. Sue, she said uh-oh, in renal failure they feel compelled to drink, yet they can’t<\/em>. I noticed, then, that she was in fact not drinking, and it hit me that my dear Mocha is soon to die. I spent the evening fighting tears, cuddling her… and noticing that I could not, for the first time, coax a purr. Her eyes were not focused on me; they were looking out at something distant.<\/p>\n

\"photo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning I’m watching her, holding her, indulging her, waiting to hear from the vet. Ready to let her go, if she is also ready to fly. I keep telling her that even though I’ll miss her dreadfully, she should get the hell out of this failing form, and be free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After sinking her claws into life following her Christmas stroke, Mocha has been loosening her grip. In the last five days, her internal fire has dimmed to a pilot light, and she is lost in the strange haze of end … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}