The Least Amongst Us

I volunteered at Pro-Bone-O in Eugene last Sunday. As always, it was exhausting and eye-opening. And as always, I was humbled to see how people with so few resources do the best they can to take care of their beloved animal companions. 

A guy walked in with a small carrier containing a grey cat. He was probably an Iraq War veteran, was about the right age, had that military stance and carriage even though life had beaten on him pretty hard for quite a few years. He also had a military-style haircut--a lot of veterans keep that hair style for their entire lives. He lives in a tent in one of the homeless encampments in Eugene. This winter has been an endless misery of rain, and I wondered how he was able to cope with that. 

He feeds the feral and stray cats that hang around the encampment, and had noticed that one of the cats was no longer eating regularly. He told me and the veterinarian that he thought she might be sick. 

We took the lid off the crate, and on a filthy towel was an ancient female cat, nothing but five pounds of skin and bones. She was covered with fleas. She had an upper respiratory infection and was having problems breathing. Mucous was coming out of her nose, and her eyes were crusty. A bit of fresh blood was coming out of her anus. She had only a handful of teeth and they were in an advanced state of disease and infection. The tip of one of her ears was cleanly cut off, a sign that at some point in the distant past, she had been trapped, spayed, and released. Her belly was slightly swollen, mostly likely with peritoneal fluid, and she was terribly dehydrated.

I really admire the way the veterinarian took the time to examine her thoroughly. He looked the guy in the eye, and said, "She's very old and very sick. Very old, sick cats often have kidney disease or heart disease. We would need to run blood tests to figure out why she is sick, but we can't do those tests here [at Pro-Bone-O; it is basic triage and treatment, no diagnostics except what you can see with your own eyes]. If you can't afford the blood tests at the community vet clinic, I think the best option is to euthanize her today."

He didn't sugarcoat it or talk down to the guy. He calmly and quietly explained the situation. The guy sighed, and said, yeah, my buddy and I thought that might be the case. 

The veterinarian said, is that what you want us to do? And the guy said, yes. 

Pro-Bone-O operates on a shoestring with donated supplies and meds. They have no controlled substances except for one: the phenobarbital solution used for animal euthanasias. The veterinarian injected propofol under the cat's skin--she was so dehydrated that there was no way we were going to be able to use a vein. I waited with the guy and the old cat, both of us petting her together. After she was heavily sedated, the veterinarian injected phenobarbital into one of her kidneys. Her heart stopped less than a minute later.

The point of all this is not to tell you a gory story about euthanizing an old, sick cat. 

This is a rant about a man, very likely a man who fought in a war for this country, a man who now lives in a tent, who has nothing himself but manages to look after stray cats. A man who one day noticed that one of the cats was sick, and knowing that he could not help her or fix her problems, managed to get her to us. 

Where is the human decency in eliminating social programs that provide assistance to people like this veteran? This homeless man, whom many of our current elected leaders would consider a burden, has the charity and kindness in his heart to look out for the least amongst us. What a world it would be if we all tried to do the same.