Fidget
Senior Member
I tend to set the life expectation at 2 yrs. That is expected for the average rattie I think. Some people - Mamarats, Jo & Nicole & others that would be more like 2 1/2 -3 yrs.
But surgery - You have to weigh the life expectancy against the truly GOOD time they will gain from losing the time spent recovering from surgery. But good has to be the main thing. If you remove a mammary tumor that slows but does not inhibit, and they feel crappy for a week, but have a couple trouble-free months after that when they would have been dragginhg around an increasingly difficult weight.. That's good time! But if they are alive to fall prey to something else that would cause them pain in their last days....I don't know. I really don't. I say do what you feel is right as long as I am talking to someone who loves the rattie more than the rattie's company.
I could have extended longer lives - and would have - if I'd had the money. I'm just not sure it would have been a better thing in all cases. Might have been because I thought I should have cause I DOULD have than being locked in the feeling on inability and having to weigh things ror my own absolving.. As I always say - a kid can't read a calendar, they only know how they feel that day. And how they are treated that day, and what good fun & food & interacton the day brings. How do you choose between putting a kid down because you see life has become more struggle than pleasure - and operating to remove the immediate problem when they are old and you know that AFTER RECOVERY any time good will be short before the other inevitabilies of age hit them? And maybe hurt?
Yes, there are alway the ones that live 3 or 4 years because they have EVERYTHING. Love, a clean interesting environment, tasty but healthful food, the best of medical care.. (then there are the ones that (are said to) ive that long IN SPITE of not having it - YOu hear about an old neglected still hanging in)
BUT WHAT ARE THOSE EXTENDED DAYS LIKE FOR THEM? Do they FEEL good?
I wish I'd have died suddenly and painlessly at 30. Here I am at 50 worrying about hanging around and ending up in one of those places the law group commercials talk about - bedsores? bruises? broken bones? I'd rather be a rattie that belonged to most of you and never know a day I wasn't loved and cared for - not as a 'resident' of a home but as a beloved child. But if I was old and real sick I'd rather you made each day worth waking for and kept it as loving &npainless as posible, unless you could truly fix it so whatever I had to suffer thru recovering gave me a LONG time in between that and the next affliction. Nobody wants a year of living in misery if they could have 2 months of comfort instead.
Easy to say for someone who has not been financially able to to fix things when they occur... But I've paid in thinking about it and what I would do if I could and what I would'n, and learned from the kids that somethings's gonna take them, whether they have a tumor at the time or not.
Some things should be fixed - things that are keeping a kid from really living when they have so much time to be healthy beyond recover from surgery.
But staving off the things a kid is dying from when they are at an age when something is looking to take them? I dunno.
As I said - I don't hold any opinions for what is right and wrong for YOUR kid, only you know. I just don't think that aggressive surgical action is right in ALL cases, and I sometimes think that people feel obligated to it because others are and we want to do what is right for our kids and not deny them something that others are doing for them..
Money or no - Are we obligated to stretch their lives? What's the real priority - Quality or Quantity?
I just wonder.. as I'm sure we all do - when is it really SAVING their lives and when is it just EXTENDING their lives?
I`m just batting stuff around, when I`m naturally whacked and not sufferering from the emotions of having a kid this pertains to at the time.
I want to make it clear that I don't question people with long-lived kids & frequent vet stuff - I know the people (least the ones I know) are right. I just don't know it it's right for the kids - any more than I KNEW the decisions I made for my kids were right -
But surgery - You have to weigh the life expectancy against the truly GOOD time they will gain from losing the time spent recovering from surgery. But good has to be the main thing. If you remove a mammary tumor that slows but does not inhibit, and they feel crappy for a week, but have a couple trouble-free months after that when they would have been dragginhg around an increasingly difficult weight.. That's good time! But if they are alive to fall prey to something else that would cause them pain in their last days....I don't know. I really don't. I say do what you feel is right as long as I am talking to someone who loves the rattie more than the rattie's company.
I could have extended longer lives - and would have - if I'd had the money. I'm just not sure it would have been a better thing in all cases. Might have been because I thought I should have cause I DOULD have than being locked in the feeling on inability and having to weigh things ror my own absolving.. As I always say - a kid can't read a calendar, they only know how they feel that day. And how they are treated that day, and what good fun & food & interacton the day brings. How do you choose between putting a kid down because you see life has become more struggle than pleasure - and operating to remove the immediate problem when they are old and you know that AFTER RECOVERY any time good will be short before the other inevitabilies of age hit them? And maybe hurt?
Yes, there are alway the ones that live 3 or 4 years because they have EVERYTHING. Love, a clean interesting environment, tasty but healthful food, the best of medical care.. (then there are the ones that (are said to) ive that long IN SPITE of not having it - YOu hear about an old neglected still hanging in)
BUT WHAT ARE THOSE EXTENDED DAYS LIKE FOR THEM? Do they FEEL good?
I wish I'd have died suddenly and painlessly at 30. Here I am at 50 worrying about hanging around and ending up in one of those places the law group commercials talk about - bedsores? bruises? broken bones? I'd rather be a rattie that belonged to most of you and never know a day I wasn't loved and cared for - not as a 'resident' of a home but as a beloved child. But if I was old and real sick I'd rather you made each day worth waking for and kept it as loving &npainless as posible, unless you could truly fix it so whatever I had to suffer thru recovering gave me a LONG time in between that and the next affliction. Nobody wants a year of living in misery if they could have 2 months of comfort instead.
Easy to say for someone who has not been financially able to to fix things when they occur... But I've paid in thinking about it and what I would do if I could and what I would'n, and learned from the kids that somethings's gonna take them, whether they have a tumor at the time or not.
Some things should be fixed - things that are keeping a kid from really living when they have so much time to be healthy beyond recover from surgery.
But staving off the things a kid is dying from when they are at an age when something is looking to take them? I dunno.
As I said - I don't hold any opinions for what is right and wrong for YOUR kid, only you know. I just don't think that aggressive surgical action is right in ALL cases, and I sometimes think that people feel obligated to it because others are and we want to do what is right for our kids and not deny them something that others are doing for them..
Money or no - Are we obligated to stretch their lives? What's the real priority - Quality or Quantity?
I just wonder.. as I'm sure we all do - when is it really SAVING their lives and when is it just EXTENDING their lives?
I`m just batting stuff around, when I`m naturally whacked and not sufferering from the emotions of having a kid this pertains to at the time.
I want to make it clear that I don't question people with long-lived kids & frequent vet stuff - I know the people (least the ones I know) are right. I just don't know it it's right for the kids - any more than I KNEW the decisions I made for my kids were right -
