Originally Posted by UnfilteredDregs

In a few days marks a year from when I had to kill my foundation Bengal, Kublai Khan...He was just shy of 6 years old. Complications from feline asthma, bullae... We had tried to manage it but it got the best of him.

We were close, an unusual bond, it's said that happens with foundation cats...FelineHD. I spent months socializing him from kittenhood, a tremendous amount of work; foundation cats are not for just anyone. The end result was a super friendly, happy, gregarious and wonderful character of an animal. He had an amazing vocabulary, trills, calls, howls, bellows... I learned all his sounds. Asian Leopard Cats are tree cats and are rather vocal with each other in the wild.

I came home from a ride, and the Spotted Dingbat Wonder came out to greet me, not his usual exuberant perky self, and he just laid down on the floor, breathing labored like I'd never seen before.

I immediately grabbed him, placed him in his carrier and sped 20 miles to the ER.

48 hours of oxygen tank, steroids, round the clock monitoring, radiology came back...not good and outside the oxygen chamber he couldn't hold blood O2 levels.

I spent an hour or so with him before it was time. I hated the fact that we were in a cold, cinderblock room, steel table, so clean and sparse, he was stressed but relatively calm because I was there. They had already put the lines in his foreleg.

Vet came in with the propofol and euthanizing drug...He placed the syringes and I pushed each plunger. I'll never forget how his head lolled to the side and the light fled from his eyes. I cradled him until the warmth left his body.

I don't put much stock in anything supernatural, UFOs, or religion, I'd guess I'm "spiritual-light" because I don't deny the possibility but I've never had any kind of strange encounter with the unexplained, so to speak. Never looked for it, am not one of "those people..."

The next morning, very early, still dark out...I awoke with this amazing pressure around me, enveloping me, not an internal sensation...people asked if it was my chest...nope, not a heart attack..Anyway, I felt this presence and I lifted my head to look in a direction I was being drawn too and I saw his silhouette surrounded by a blinding light, as I looked I was being drawn into it until finally he just left...a point falling away into infinity.

I gasped a huge inhalation and the sensation was gone. I have never felt, or experienced anything like that before or since in my life. Was not dreaming, absolutely conscious.

Really got me thinking about the whole euthanasia thing philosophically speaking...Who are we to decide what's enough suffering? When does that outweigh and take precedence over the will to live? I don't have the answers, but it still continues to make me wonder.

Anyhow, y'all can call me crazy now...

K.K.:

Originally Posted by LesterOfPuppets

I got this the other day. Put it on two chains so far.



Could it be the reason for FOUR PRs today? "It's gotta be the chain lube!"

Bike Ride Profile | Afternoon Ride near Vancouver | Times and Records | Strava

Saw a blue heron roadkill, though. That was depressing.



Got a proper stem on the Lemond. Maybe that's why all the PRs...



Took a close-to-water pic for @coasting.



That boat was so beautiful, wish I'd had a the real camera with me. This is the best I could do with phone zoom.

Originally Posted by Velo Vol

How do you know what the bird died of? Did you conduct a roadside autopsy?

Originally Posted by 3alarmer

...so you're hoping you have cancer ? I don't blame you. After a while, you start to really lust after a definite diagnosis.

Originally Posted by Velo Vol

Sure, why not? I'm already taking a drug for it.

Actually, one of the drugs has triggered symptoms of what appears to me to be psoriasis, casting the RA theory into question.

Originally Posted by Velo Vol

OK, to be more precise, what symptoms that prompt someone to see a musculoskeletal doctor indicate colon cancer?

Originally Posted by UnfilteredDregs

Really got me thinking about the whole euthanasia thing philosophically speaking...Who are we to decide what's enough suffering? When does that outweigh and take precedence over the will to live? I don't have the answers, but it still continues to make me wonder.

Anyhow, y'all can call me crazy now...

K.K.:

Originally Posted by Rowan

Far from it. One of the posts of the year.

Originally Posted by Velo Vol

OK, to be more precise, what symptoms that prompt someone to see a musculoskeletal doctor indicate colon cancer?

I can't even get a proper diagnosis from a witch doctor who has specialized for 30 years in my exact ailment.

Originally Posted by UnfilteredDregs

Originally Posted by RUOkie

My 20+ year old domestic house cat needed to be euthanized last April, with renal failure. She lived at my office and was the best cat. Patients would go out of their way to come say hi to her. Our Vet is one of my friends. He offered to stay late so I could do it. But my wife's death was so fresh I just couldn't.

One of my few regrets in my life is that I couldn't be there for her.

Originally Posted by Ramona_W

Several years ago, my mom was diagnosed with what one doctor called "quirky arthritis". She could never anticipate, when she woke up in the morning, what would hurt or how much except that, wherever there was pain, there was usually a lot of it i.e. Prednisone and ibuprofen would only take the edge off for about two hours. The doctors were fascinated that arthritis could move around from the shoulder to the hand and so on. Eventually, through a fluke, they discovered that what looked like arthritis was actually a side effect of a blood pressure medication she was taking. So, you just never know.

Originally Posted by coasting

blood pressure meds are insidious. they cause all sorts of weird side effects that you just don't think of as a side effect and it makes the patient and the doc think you have some other problem and then they give you treatment or drugs for that problem and then other problems arise and so on. i just won't take my blood pressure meds anymore. and i feel great and my blood pressure has come down with decent eating.

Originally Posted by RUOkie

It is probably the Ginger/Beetroot enemas

Originally Posted by coasting

i am sick of attention seeking health scare pushers making up crap just to get some notoriety. they play with people's lives.

i just got a call from my mum in a panic saying i must stop doing my bicycle riding because it gives men prostate cancer. bullcrap. i googled this "research" that was just picked up by the uk newspapers in their usual thirst for sensationalism and it looks flakey at best and even the medical institutions question how reliable it is, yet the media apparently made it seem certain. F them.

i had a similar call from her a while back telling me to stop eating fruit because it has too much sugar. Another bullcrap media scare. everything that is common knowledge to be good, attract wackos who want to cause a stir and they scare people just to get that.

Originally Posted by Ramona_W

Well, maybe not everyone but that's the kind I prefer.

Originally Posted by Ramona_W

Apparently Lester also needs a hoe. Jesus, I do the best I can but sometimes I have to go to work.

Originally Posted by RUOkie

For the past 4 yrs I've gotten all of my medical knowledge from @coasting and VeloVol. I can even get CME credit for reading this thread.

Originally Posted by Ramona_W

The doctors were fascinated that arthritis could move around from the shoulder to the hand and so on.

Originally Posted by coasting

the uk newspapers in their usual thirst for sensationalism

Originally Posted by Herbie53

Hey VV, are you a hard riding Knoxville biker?