Dr. Rebecca L. G. Verna, MS, DVM, CAC, CVA, CVCH, CCRP / Marshall, Virginia
As a holistic veterinarian, I was invited by a good friend to do a housecall euthanasia. My friend is a massage therapist for humans, and she is also studying cranial-sacral techniques.
When I arrived at my friend’s place, I had the odd feeling that I’d forgotten a few items. I always pack a kit for this kind of house call. For some reason, I arrived without my tourniquet, cotton balls, alcohol, or clippers. I hadn’t even brought my stethoscope! Wondering what was wrong with me, I decided to let God guide me through this experience.
My friend’s sister welcomed me into their home and showed me to the backyard, where the cancer patient – a cat named Miss Pippin – was lying on my friend’s lap, looking restful and at peace. The two of them sat under a tree in the yard among the wildflowers.
I confessed that I had some concern about being there without the necessary equipment to prepare the cat’s vein. When I finished saying this, Miss Pippin placed her foreleg in my hand and exposed her vein to me. She was letting me know that this was her choice, too. I prayed for guidance, then I clamped down the vein high on her leg to allow it to stand out and be visible. With my other hand, I slid the needle gently into her vein. It was the perfect stick. Miss Pippin purred while I slowly injected the solution.
I talked quietly to Miss Pippin and my friend the whole time. As the cat went quietly to sleep on my friend’s lap, I saw a bright mental image of Miss Pippin leaping into the air to catch a butterfly in the meadow beyond the yard. My friend confirmed that Miss Pippin had always been a great butterfly chaser.
Then my friend took my hands and guided me to place them over the back of the cat’s head and on her sacrum. “The cranial-sacral pulses get very strong at the time of passing,” she said. “See if you can feel them.”
I tried to feel the gentle, wavelike rhythm she described, and soon I was surprised to feel a soft ebbing and flowing under my fingertips, like the ocean tides. I have training in the Japanese energy-healing technique of Reiki, so I knew how to feel the cat’s energy. It grew hotter and hotter under my hands during Miss Pippin’s transition to the other worlds. My friend and I held the cat for a long time, until both sensations passed.
Later, we each wrote to our teachers in cranial-sacral therapy and Reiki and asked them why these energies had surged so strongly at the time of Miss Pippin’s death. They both explained that the cat was trying to soothe our pain at releasing her by sending energy back to comfort us.
God bless all the little creatures and the love they share with us during their lives – and even at their deaths.