Thursday. It finally had to be done. One of my favorite patients had to be euthanized today. She was a cancer survivor. She had lived for eleven months with a tumor attached to her heart. She’d done amazingly well in spite of it. She’d had surgery once to remove the external lining of the heart (the pericardium) so that fluid accumulating here would not place undue pressure on it. The tumor had grown and grown and now it had spread to her lungs. She could no longer breathe well. She just couldn’t get comfortable. We tried different medications to keep her comfy for awhile but it kept coming back to the same thing: no matter what we did she was going to die very soon.

Finally, her owners decided that she would be happiest if she was euthanized at a favorite park. This was something I had never done before. I wasn’t even sure it was legal. It`s safe to assume the DEA wouldn`t be happy about my traveling with controlled substances (nevermind using them at a public park). But it`s always better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. And dammit, I like to live on the wild side. I want to make these people and their dog happy. Let the DEA come after me for that.

So it all went off without a hitch. And she’ll be buried in a special plot near her family (location undisclosed). And hopefully the DEA won’t come after me after this little article gets broadcast online.