Dear Dr. Sizemore, I received your sympathy card today. I understand that you likely intended it as…read morea kind gesture, but receiving it brought me back to August 18th and left me crying as hard as I did the day Chaka died.You wrote that you were sorry "if" you added more distress to an already difficult time. I need you to understand that there is no "if." You did add distress, and what happened that afternoon has left me with memories that will haunt me forever-The day before our appt I contacted you because Chaka seemed to be doing better, and I was struggling with whether it was truly his time. You told me, "Take your time."I took those words seriously.By the following day, Chaka had experienced some additional difficulty breathing, so I kept our 3pm appt. But before you arrived, I had decided that I still did not believe either Chaka or I was ready to say goodbye that day.Then you arrived 30 min early.I told you how I felt. I even offered to pay you your entire fee,AND to pay you more money to return when the time came.Your response was that you had other appts and that if you left, you were not coming back.i can't describe what hearing that did to me.
Chaka had a large tumor in his chest affecting his heart, lungs and airway. My greatest fear throughout his illness was not death itself. It was that he might suddenly deteriorate and struggle or suffocate and I would be unable to get someone to him quickly enough to end his suffering peacefully.So when you told me that if you left you would not return, I felt trapped.I was forced to choose between proceeding with euthanasia when I was telling you I didn't believe he was ready, or sending away the person I had arranged to help him and risking being unable to find someone if he suddenly went into respiratory distress later that day, that night, or the following day.I also asked you to look at Chaka's X-ray and the diagnosis and records from the University of Florida Veterinary Hospital. I wanted you to understand exactly what was wrong with him, what had been done for him, and why I was struggling so desperately with the timing.You refused.You told me you would not look at another doctor's paperwork because that was not what you were there to do.I needed a veterinarian in that moment. I needed someone who could look at the information, look at my dog, listen to the person who knew him better than anyone, and help me determine whether this truly needed to happen that afternoon.Instead, I felt rushed into making the most irreversible decision of my life.And then the peaceful goodbye I had desperately wanted for Chaka became anything but peaceful.I held my beloved dog while you repeatedly attempted to administer the medication.
I watched you try again and again, in three of his legs, before you were finally able to administer it. I had to look into Chaka's eyes throughout that experience.
Those eyes are what I see when I close mine.Instead of remembering his final moments as peaceful, loving and compassionate--me holding him safely in his own home and reassuring him as he quietly slipped away--I remember looking into his frightened eyes while he was repeatedly being stuck with a needle.I cannot redo those moments.I cannot give Chaka another goodbye.That alone would have been difficult enough to live with. But what happened after you left has made it infinitely worse.
My friend followed you outside, and she told me that you said to her: "Whoever told your friend that dog needed to be put down now lied to her because he seemed fine to me." I need you to understand what those words have done to me.
If Chaka "seemed fine" to you, WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT TO ME?I was the person standing in front of you telling you that I didn't think he was ready.
I was the person asking you for more time.I was the person offering to pay you in full to leave without performing the euthanasia and then pay you additional money to return another day. If, in your professional opinion, Chaka appeared stable enough that euthanasia did not need to happen at that moment, I desperately needed to hear that BEFORE my dog was dead--not afterward, outside my home, spoken to my friend.
Had you said to me, "I've looked at Chaka and I don't believe he needs to be euthanized today," you would have been confirming exactly what my heart was already telling me.
Instead, you told me that if you left, you would not come back.
TBC in another review.
