From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-04-19 17:39:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Euthanasia
>When Jubilee was put to sleep she was put under gas for quite a bit first.
>She loved it and put her head in there because it smelled really fruity. :)
>She was left asleep in the gas for a bit to really make sure she was under
>before the shot. Even though she was "out".. quite heavily, she got the
>bottle brush thing. What surprised me... was she got it AFTER the last
>breaths...not with the last breath. Here she was pretty much passed... but
>had an after affect. Now that caught me off guard. I thought it would be
>during.
Yes, things move and change right after death, too. If you will
pardon me for being frank: 25 years ago when my mother died after a
long bout of lung cancer my father and I were with her at the last
along with friend who is a nurse, but Dad didn't realize it was the
last. She passed away about the same time as another friend came to
see her and her jaw moved up and down in relation to her head (Her
head may have done some of the moving and made it look that way.).
Dad thought that she was trying to talk to the friend which made it
all very complicated and Mom's time of death as a result is recorded
as little bit later than it really happened -- to give him time to
say goodbye.
Bladder contents and some of the bowel contents can be lost right
after death, too.
> I have a questiong a bit on topic. When I my little girl was really
>suffering fighting for breaths, and so sick before we put her to sleep... I
>noticed that day, and the day before something, well... disturbing. I
>noticed that.. well her fur lay flat, messed up, almost matted, and very
>unnatural the day before and day of putting her to sleep.
Yes, we have seen that, too, and also have seen it with some very ill
ones till they began to improve.
> Also.... it was if
>she lost all muscle tone and such. It was like she was fur, skin, and bone.
>She was large and healthy... this was something that happened in four days so
>she did not loose weight.
She had JL. Muscle loss is very common with malignancies, though I
don't know how much can happen in short periods of time. It may also
be that the muscle loss began before you knew there was an illness;
sometimes -- even with people -- a disease remains hidden for some
time. When Helix had her's she lasted maybe two weeks and went from
being one of the most muscular ferrets we have ever had to having zip
musculature in that time.
> Maybe it was some dehydration... but we worked
>hard to not let her get very dehydrated. I hate to say this.... it's
>morbid.... but it actually felt as if she was already "dead" when I held her.
Yes, it can feel like that.
>
> Like her body had already given up. Inside I felt her suffering and
>fighting like mad. Anyway.... is this normal. It killed my husband to see
>her in this condition. Just killed him.
We found JL to be the most emotionally painful ferret illness we have
coped with over the years, Rebecca.