We had to let Sammie go last Wednesday.

The lump first appeared on her nose sometime in the Summer of 2024. It was small. You could miss it if you didn’t know her face.

The vet did a biopsy. Melanoma. We were told the median survival time was 6 months.

Over the next 18, we did everything we could to make her life comfortable. When the tumor grew too large, we’d have it debulked. When she couldn’t clean herself anymore, we brushed her and gave her baths. In the end, we had to hand feed her when the tumor, now inoperable, got in the way of eating on her own.

But we couldn’t feed her enough that way, and she was losing weight. The tumor was getting larger and soon would spread into her bones. Although she was always happy to cuddle, in the last week she spent most of her hours curled up in a heated bed, tolerating a pain she had no way to avoid.

She couldn’t use words to tell us her wishes. We had to guess. But if I were her, I’d want to be spared the pain and indignity that so often comes at [...]

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