When my red tabby Maine Coon, Arizona, developed liver problems in '97, I got him through that and fed him through a stomach tube all one summer. He then developed diabetes, and he had to be in the vet hospital during the day and the night care place overnight -- two different places. I took him back and forth. When he came home, I gave him his insulin shots twice a day for almost two years.

Cancer got him at the last. They advised me there were experimental therapies that carried no guarantee he'd be cured, and would probably leave him blind in one eye -- and he'd have had to spend most of the week in a hospital 30 miles away. And at that he'd still have a low survival chance. I nodded and kept him happy for his last week or so, and was there, holding him, when the vet gave him that final shot.

As I said at the time, the balance on my Visa looked like the national debt of a small South American country . . . but there's an extra-warm spot in hell for people who abandon their animals for mere convenience, and I'm sensitive to heat.

It's hard to say if he loved me back, but he was certainly attached to me, and I'd do it again. He depended on me. Your Harry is depending on you.
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-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino