In their defense, we really shouldn’t be doing chemo on dogs for the most part anyway. A big part of getting through chemo as a human is rationalizing the pain, nausea, and other discomforts. Humans can rationalize that those discomforts are saving their life, or at least helping them live long enough to go to their kid’s wedding or see the first grandbaby be born or whatever. A dog can’t rationalize or look forward to the future, the dog just knows it feels like hell today. It seems rather cruel when you consider it that way.
That’s just a medical ethics debate though, the financial aspect of this is cockamamie.
Honestly, whether a person should pursue chemo or whatever else to prolong their life is their decision. It should be okay for assisted suicide to happen. or even not-assisted suicide, though I would really hope people seek help.
But also, I don’t really think people struggling financially are going to get chemo for their dog. Like that’s not even in the cards. (unless they have pet insurance, I s’pose)
As someone who had a dog and a family member go through chemo at basically the same time, the dosages are much lower compared to humans for those very reasons. While nausea can still be an issue, they really don’t experience much of the other discomforts that people undergo. I’ll always be thankful for the extra couple years of quality life it gave him.
As our oncologist said, people are able to tell us how they feel so they tend to get far higher dosages and back off if it becomes too much or take other measures as necessary.
In their defense, we really shouldn’t be doing chemo on dogs for the most part anyway. A big part of getting through chemo as a human is rationalizing the pain, nausea, and other discomforts. Humans can rationalize that those discomforts are saving their life, or at least helping them live long enough to go to their kid’s wedding or see the first grandbaby be born or whatever. A dog can’t rationalize or look forward to the future, the dog just knows it feels like hell today. It seems rather cruel when you consider it that way.
That’s just a medical ethics debate though, the financial aspect of this is cockamamie.
Honestly, whether a person should pursue chemo or whatever else to prolong their life is their decision. It should be okay for assisted suicide to happen. or even not-assisted suicide, though I would really hope people seek help.
But also, I don’t really think people struggling financially are going to get chemo for their dog. Like that’s not even in the cards. (unless they have pet insurance, I s’pose)
As someone who had a dog and a family member go through chemo at basically the same time, the dosages are much lower compared to humans for those very reasons. While nausea can still be an issue, they really don’t experience much of the other discomforts that people undergo. I’ll always be thankful for the extra couple years of quality life it gave him.
As our oncologist said, people are able to tell us how they feel so they tend to get far higher dosages and back off if it becomes too much or take other measures as necessary.