sadie

another message from dad on my answering machine today. sadie's gotten much worse--she can't walk at all now, and even turned away peanut butter to eat. i'm going home tomorrow right after my oral defense. dad had made an appointment to take sadie to the vet tomorrow morning at 9, probably to put her to sleep. since i'm coming home tomorrow, they're going to wait.

i read recently about a 2-stage method of putting animals to sleep: first you give them a drug to make them sleep, then a drug to kill them. apparently, the drug to kill them makes them struggle. i asked dad to see if the vet would give the sleeping drug to my mom (she's a nurse), so that we could give sadie the sleeping drug at home, where she's comfortable (she's always been afraid of the vet). then, once she's asleep, we could take her to the vet, and he could finish.

it's fine to contemplate stuff like this in the abstract, before you're actually faced with it, but i fear the actual moment when mom will give sadie the injection. and then she'll close her eyes and go to sleep, and i'll never see her again.