July 17, 2025 • 26 mins
Why do so many pet parents carry regrets—even years after saying goodbye? In this heartfelt episode, Gail and Karen explore the many faces of regret in the grieving process: from sudden losses to long hospice journeys, from things we didn’t know to things we wish we’d done differently.
We talk about how hindsight can distort our memories, how caregiving often brings a painful illusion of control, and why self-forgiveness isn’t just helpful—it’s necessary. You’ll hear our personal stories, along with compassionate insights that can help pet parents heal the invisible wounds that regret can leave behind.
Whether you're in the midst of anticipatory grief or still revisiting a loss long in the past, this episode is for you.
💬 “Regret doesn’t mean you failed. It means you loved deeply—and you’re still learning.”
📌 Related Resource: Blog Post: "Regret After Pet Loss: How to Stop Replaying the End and Start Healing"
💬 If this episode touched your heart, you’re not alone. The BrightHaven Caregivers’ Hub is our supportive membership community for pet parents navigating caregiving, anticipatory grief, and all the moments in between.
We gather to share stories, ask questions, and care for each other as we care for our animals. If you’re walking this path, we’d be honored to walk it with you.
🔗 Learn more about the Hub: https://brightpathforpets.com/caregivers-hub/
📌Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review 🐶⭐🐱
Learn More from BrightHaven Caregiver Academy For free resources, upcoming workshops, and a supportive community dedicated to navigating life with your aging or ill pet:
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Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes and not a substitute for professional advice. We are not veterinarians. While we do not provide medical diagnoses or treatments, we are experienced holistic caregivers. Our support focuses on helping you assess the situation, understand your options, and find clarity and calm in the middle of distress
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie here with my partner, Gail Pope.
Today we're going to talk about something that lives in the hearts of so many caregivers and that is Regret.
Regret shows up when you've loved really deeply and when we've done our best.
(01:16):
Still sometimes something nags at us and we're wondering if we got it right.
So regrets can sit alongside quite a variety of different emotions (01:22):
feelings of guilt, feelings of grief, feelings of worry, and sometimes even gratitude for the experiences that we've had with our pets.
So we're going to talk today about why regret is so common in pet loss and perhaps how to make some sense of it at least some of the time, and maybe even how to make peace with it.
(01:54):
Gail, as I often do, I'm going to ask you to start us off with this.
Let's explore why regrets are so common and often so sneaky.
Because they can come back in the middle of the night, you're awake and you're saying, "Ugh, I should have caught that sooner" or "Why didn't I do this other thing, this other treatment that was an option?" or "I think I may have waited too long."
(02:28):
So we've gone through all those kind of feelings at various times with various pets.
So why do you think regret is so common for us and sneaks up on us?
Gail Pope (02:40):
The short answer is I don't know.
The long answer is I think our minds are at the root of it.
We can't switch our minds off and our mind will remind us of things just at the moment when it's unexpected.
So I think regret, for me anyway, can pop in at any odd time.
(03:03):
I guess it's part of grief, isn't it?
You just never quite know when it's going to hit that vortex again and boom, you're back in it.
I think maybe it's two-sided because the more you know, the more you learn, the more you can have cause to look back and wish you'd done whatever it was differently last time.
(03:25):
On the other hand, it can also work in reverse and it comes closer to whatever the incident was and instantly you think, "Oh, I wonder if there was something different I should have done then."
So it can attack you both ways and it can definitely stay with you very painfully for a very long time.
(03:47):
I'm sure you've experienced that too and I have.
I can look back and remember lots of incidents in the past when I was still learning my approach and I may've lost animals that I would've done something different later.
I can still look back and think, "Oh, that's so sad, if only I'd known."
But it doesn't hurt as badly because I can forgive myself and I guess that lies at the bottom of the whole discussion, doesn't it?
(04:16):
It's about forgiveness.
We learn a lot to help ourselves forgive others.
But we don't really address the forgiving our own selves for something that inadvertently may have happened or not been done.
I think maybe that's part of it.
Does that go anyway at all to answering the question?
Karen Wylie (04:36):
Oh, absolutely!
I think forgiving yourself especially for what you didn't know at the time you experienced something that you're grieving about, the loss of a pet that you love is part of learning how to make peace with it.
Although as you're saying and I'd have to agree, you can make peace with a situation and then at another time another thought sneaks in on you.
(05:02):
You have to rethink everything through again.
Hindsight is part of what's sneaky, I think, because we always think we have 20/20 hindsight when we're reflecting about so many things in life.
But when it comes to our losses, it's like we fill in some of the gaps which we're able to do over time because we learn more.
(05:25):
If we learn more from other losses, we learn more from our relationships.
Then we start applying it back to situations in the past and we then really— we re-injure ourselves when we hold ourselves to those standards.
In fact, the reason I even was suggesting this as our topic today is because at our "Cuppa and Conversation" event last Thursday which everyone is invited to by the way.
(05:53):
One of our regular attendees was talking about the fact that in reflecting about the day that we were meeting, that it was the 15th anniversary of the loss of one of her pets.
She brought up the fact that there's so much that she knows now that she didn't know then.
How that was making that anniversary of loss difficult all over again 15 years ago.
(06:21):
That certainly resonated with me when she was sharing that because I've done that to myself so many times.
Probably all the time in many different ways and you do have to somehow get yourself past it.
We take those memories and it's like we start filling in the gaps with what we know now and didn't know then but we make ourselves think we should have known.
Gail Pope (06:47):
I guess it's that old word "balance" because as you're talking, I'm thinking actually I just jotted down two experiences that for me really stand out as "I didn't know any better" or "I could have made this work." I think part of how we can work towards handling that and it's such a difficult, such a big thing to address but we talked about forgiving ourselves.
(07:15):
I don't think it's quite so much about forgiveness for us and what we did or didn't know but it's about honoring the memory of the being who died and putting that in front of "It was my fault", or "If I'd known better".
Then when that hurts, it's like a knife goes into your chest at that time.
(07:37):
Then starting to think about how beautiful that being was and what a lovely relationship.
Then you can gradually weave in, we both did our best.
We both loved each other and maybe there was a reason.
Maybe it was an experience I was meant to have it.
You can start to push the spiritual aspect out a little bit because sometimes there is a reason and it helps you learn and it helps you to be a better version of who you are.
Karen Wylie (08:06):
And to extend that just a little bit further, you and I would not be recording these podcast episodes or creating BCA.
We had all these experiences and you were already doing it for so many years in terms of providing educational materials for people to capture what you learned from your experiences and sharing them.
But it's only been the last few years that I was like, "Oh, I've got all those years. I ought to do something with what I learned." Of course, that's when we met years ago and started thinking about what we could do together.
Gail Pope (08:39):
That's the reflections, isn't it?
You start to reflect back on all the things that you did right or wrong that you didn't know.
It even brings up new things for you that, "I'd really like to learn more about that now".
Karen Wylie (08:54):
We're always learning about new things, always these days.
One of the thoughts I had thinking about regrets is how many more regrets I had with sudden death situations as compared to my hospice care situations.
(09:14):
So the speed of the event seems to play a big role, or at least it has for me.
The pressure is on.
You've got to identify what's going on faster.
You've got to get help and support and treatment faster.
You have to make the right decision faster.
If then the death happens very suddenly, then you have a very compressed time period that you're remembering and it's *Gasp*.
(09:40):
Whereas when we are in situations where we're able to offer hospice care at home to our pets as they're aging, as they're dealing with a chronic diagnosis or something that's difficult to manage day to day, and certainly a terminal diagnosis.
(10:01):
I have fewer regrets in those losses because there's just more time.
There's more time to say what you want to say, to think about what you want to do, what your pet would want you to do.
Time is such a luxury and that's one of the things I advocate for hospice care, both for humans and for our pets.
(10:22):
Because I think it lends to
I can't say easier grief.
Grief is never easy.
But it does for me lead to fewer regrets.
Then the grief is different and not as painful and I don't re-injure myself as much with rethinking, "Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I should have done that. I should have known."
(10:50):
So for me, although most people who listen to our podcast or watch us know that we focus on Palliative and Hospice care, there are people who also have experienced sudden losses with their pets.
So I do think our feelings then and what we experience fall into two different camps.
Gail Pope (11:08):
Yes, I think so.
I hadn't really thought about it, but again, I keep jotting things down here, and what I hadn't realized is that the stories that are coming into my mind as you're talking, every single one of them was to do with the speed of death.
It was fast and it wasn't expected, and it was shock.
(11:30):
Shock was a huge part.
That made me also think of the times when something happens, could be a cat, could be a dog, could be a bird,
happens to be in the road just at that moment and gets hit by a car and killed.
That hasn't happened to me.
I've seen it happen to somebody else and that hurt me.
(11:52):
I think I experienced the same pain as the person who actually was driving the car.
So I can barely imagine had I been the driver.
I think that there's so many different aspects to this subject that we're talking about.
But yes, I think the speed of death—
(12:16):
gosh, stories are floating in my minds of the ones that I look back and regret.
One, for instance, was the most wonderful, adorable old lady called Ebony.
She was a huge, black, rounded, sweet, fuzzy, lovely girl.
This was I guess during the days where I was learning about euthanasia versus a natural death.
(12:41):
She was having a long, slow, difficult journey toward the end of life, and I finally made the decision to euthanize her.
She was euthanized at home on the couch in my arms
and as the euthanasia solution went into her, the look on her face has never left me.
(13:08):
She did not want that ending.
It was really clear.
The veterinarian who euthanized her actually voiced that as well and said, "Oh my God, that was just heartbreaking."
So I hadn't thought about that in a very long time.
But I guess as we are talking about those things, two or three other stories actually, not about euthanasia, but to do with speed of death are floating back in.
(13:35):
So I guess they never go away.
These are from way back when in years and years ago.
So I can imagine, I mean that pain still stabs and I guess it always will.
Maybe those are learning experiences.
I guess they are.
We learn from these kinds of experiences but they are part of the rich tapestry of life, aren't they?
Karen Wylie (13:56):
Very much
Gail Pope (13:57):
They really are.
We don't invite them.
We don't want them but they balance our lives.
They make us more careful, more everything, perhaps.
Gosh, Karen, what a difficult subject this is.
How could you do this?
Karen Wylie (14:12):
Aren't you glad that I picked this topic today?
Gail Pope (14:16):
Oh, grief— it does sits hand in hand with grief and it's these kinds of grief situations are difficult to revisit.
Karen Wylie (14:25):
They're very difficult to revisit.
I think as time goes by for us, since we experienced a particular loss,
it's like we start thinking we had more control in that situation than we did in real life.
So we're thinking it through and we're analyzing and our logical brain is just moving along when in reality in the moment with so many situations with our pets, we are not in control.
(15:05):
We don't always know that we're not in control.
We might be trying to be in control.
Doing our best to handle everything and juggle everything just right.
But I think when we're looking at situations, months or years or even decades later, that illusion of control interferes.
(15:26):
Because when we're that emotionally distanced from the events, we think more and feel a little bit less.
It doesn't mean the grief goes away but we're not in the moment of grief.
So we use, like I said earlier, we use our brain to re-injure ourselves with our thoughts and our new knowledge of what could have been, should have been done and so forth.
(15:51):
As you're so good at reminding us in so many of these situations, we have to have some self-compassion which very often we don't.
I think a lot of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else in our lives.
But when you tell us to remember that we've done our best, it helps to hear that in the moment, but then again, later on we can still keep revisiting and reinjuring ourselves with all these regrets.
Gail Pope (16:29):
I'm sitting here with things floating back into my mind from the past, oh gosh.
But one thing does occur to me is that these things do come to us to teach us.
I have an interesting memory.
It was not an easy or nice death and I don't harbor the regret that I didn't know because there was nothing I could have done and I didn't know.
(16:55):
But I was asked to take in a cat who was very ill.
He actually had come from a veterinary office and when he was clearly getting worse, one of their vet techs came.
To check him over to see if there was anything that could be done and couldn't find anything wrong.
(17:16):
Long story short, anyway, he died mainly because his bladder had burst and nobody knew that it was a problem.
That was horrific for me.
That was really awful to know that his actual death wasn't that awful as it turned out.
But knowing the reason for it as something that could have been helped sat with me for a long time, and it hasn't come back into my mind.
(17:44):
As I'm sitting here thinking now, when I look at over the years since then, I have had a steady succession of animals, cats who have come to me for rescue because they needed to have their bladders manually expressed.
I keep saying, "Why is it that I attract these animals?
(18:06):
How did they find me?
How do the vets find me?
How did ordinary people find me for rescue?" Duh.
Now I'm looking back and thinking that was my beginning.
Isn't that's curious?
I'd never thought of that before and how that might work.
Karen Wylie (18:27):
That's so interesting that you bring that up because I had that situation occur just a few years ago where all of a sudden I had a three-year-old cat whose belly was very bloated.
So of course I rushed into the clinic and I knew it was bad— that kind of bloating.
(18:49):
Whether it's congestive heart failure or FIP or so many different they're bleeding internally— they're bad off.
The vet came in and it was not my regular vet who I think very highly of.
But the vet came in and said, "His urinary tract is blocked and unfortunately this happens to cats that are overweight."
And I was like, "No, he's not overweight.
(19:12):
That belly is not from being..." and long story short, she didn't do a belly tap until 12 hours later after she tried to unblock him five times and his bladder had burst and the bloating was all the urine in his belly.
So that is one of my deaths that I revisit because it was sudden and out of my control.
(19:37):
But I keep revisiting that moment in the exam room when she said, "Unfortunately this is what happens when cats are overweight. I should have fought harder. I should have demanded that the belly tap be done."
It's just I re-injure myself every time.
So it's interesting.
Gail Pope (19:55):
We just can't know, can we?
We can't know everything.
Then we feel a burden of responsibility that we didn't know.
The older we get, the more we do learn.
I live with my cat, Purrci, who can't urinate.
He can't defecate either, so I'm responsible for both.
Every single time I go to manually express his bladder, something up here, I didn't even remember that story, but it's there because the fear is always in that moment, "what if I can't express him?"
Karen Wylie (20:26):
Me hearing your story, triggered things back.
Triggered that memory for me to come in and realize that I'm not showing myself the compassion I should.
Because I did the best I could at the time.
So as a little caregiver educator— heal thyself.
Gail Pope (20:45):
Exactly.
Just sitting at my desk while we are talking, I just glanced over on this side and I have a wonderful cure for these kinds of things.
Can you see that?
*shows plush toy saying "Laugh Often"
Karen Wylie (20:56):
Oh, I do— "Laugh Often."
Gail Pope (20:59):
And that's the greatest cure of all.
Somebody gave him to me, a few years ago, and he's a little dirty and tatty, but he has to stay on my desk because I need this.
I need it.
He's just so beautiful.
Karen Wylie (21:15):
And especially given the topics that you and I talk about and preparing materials for pet parents.
It's a lot of heavy topics and yet we do find ways to remember things that put a smile on our face at the same time.
Gail Pope (21:31):
Yes, very much.
It's all part of living and learning, isn't it?
Living, learning and loving— the 3L's.
Karen Wylie (21:40):
Absolutely, because there's just so many parts of caregiving that are outside of our control.
We try to
provide some help.
Through the educational materials we do through this podcast and discussing things but in reality there are so many things outside of our control that we have to come to terms with.
(22:07):
And so as I always do, I ask you to provide the last word in this discussion and so I'm curious.
Gail Pope (22:21):
You've got me just sitting here and part of me is dwelling in the past.
Part of me is dwelling in the future, and I can almost see the scales sitting here of our lives.
There's the pluses, the minuses, the ups and the downs, the disasters, the successes.
You know, it comes all the way back to that word Balance.
(22:47):
In order to have balance, we have to have love for ourselves and for others.
Then because of the topic, forgiveness, we have to forgive ourselves.
We have to forgive others.
We have to know we did our best and we did learn whether it was something we wish we hadn't learned, we did learn.
(23:11):
So I think really that's about all I would come up with because it's such a difficult and poignant subject that affects absolutely every single person in the world.
I can't believe that there's anybody who doesn't look back on a something, that has left them with that feeling of "Ugh".
It's being human.
(23:31):
It brings us back to the center of ourselves.
It's almost brings us back into what who we are and where we are.
It's almost like a new beginning.
We have to accept it, forgive, love, and move on.
But it stays with us because these things help build who we are, don't they?
Karen Wylie (23:50):
They do.
Hopefully as you've said, whatever we learn through these difficult experiences, we're then able to share with others in some way.
Help a future pet of our own and just keep moving forward and remembering how much we loved those pets and had wonderful experiences and not be so focused on the end, but it really was about about their whole life.
Gail Pope (24:16):
You know what just in finishing, one thing that does occur to me is, although these kinds of conversations are difficult and a little scary, they're very necessary and we don't have them.
These are the kind of things that at like our Cuppa and Conversation meetings, they're the kind of things that people can come and talk about.
(24:41):
Because these are the things that should be talked about but we hide behind the word death.
It's good to actually have someone that you can come and talk to.
So come and talk to us.
Karen Wylie (24:53):
Absolutely.
We not only have each other to talk to about these things but we talk with other people too.
If you would like to join us this Thursday or any Thursday, we meet at 10:00 AM Pacific time.
If you visit our BrightPathForPets.com website, right there on the homepage, you'll have some information about how to join us and we hope that you will.
(25:17):
As always, thank you for being with us.
Gail, thank you for a very enlightening conversation today.
I think we've explored some new things that we haven't explored previously.
So I think that's always hopeful for us and hopefully for those who listen or watch us.
So thank you for being with us and we'll see you next time.
(25:37):
Bye-bye.
Gail Pope (25:38):
Thank You.
Goodbye.
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(26:15):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
Welcome to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents, the podcast by BrightHaven Caregiver Academy.
I'm Gail Pope and I'm Karen Wylie and together we're here to support you in navigating life with your aging or ill pets.
We know how deeply you care for your beloved companions, and we're here to offer guidance, understanding, and resources for this meaningful journey.
(00:25):
Each episode we'll explore topics that address the daily challenges, emotional realities, and choices you face as a pet parent helping you and your pets find peace, comfort, and joy.
Whether it's making sense of a new diagnosis, adjusting to changing needs, or simply seeking a place to feel understood, you're not alone.
(00:47):
Thank you for being here with us.
Karen Wylie (00:50):
Hello and welcome back to Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
I'm Karen Wylie here with my partner, Gail Pope.
Today we're going to talk about something that lives in the hearts of so many caregivers and that is Regret.
Regret shows up when you've loved really deeply and when we've done our best.
(01:16):
Still sometimes something nags at us and we're wondering if we got it right.
So regrets can sit alongside quite a variety of different emotions (01:22):
feelings of guilt, feelings of grief, feelings of worry, and sometimes even gratitude for the experiences that we've had with our pets.
So we're going to talk today about why regret is so common in pet loss and perhaps how to make some sense of it at least some of the time, and maybe even how to make peace with it.
(01:54):
Gail, as I often do, I'm going to ask you to start us off with this.
Let's explore why regrets are so common and often so sneaky.
Because they can come back in the middle of the night, you're awake and you're saying, "Ugh, I should have caught that sooner" or "Why didn't I do this other thing, this other treatment that was an option?" or "I think I may have waited too long."
(02:28):
So we've gone through all those kind of feelings at various times with various pets.
So why do you think regret is so common for us and sneaks up on us?
Gail Pope (02:40):
The short answer is I don't know.
The long answer is I think our minds are at the root of it.
We can't switch our minds off and our mind will remind us of things just at the moment when it's unexpected.
So I think regret, for me anyway, can pop in at any odd time.
(03:03):
I guess it's part of grief, isn't it?
You just never quite know when it's going to hit that vortex again and boom, you're back in it.
I think maybe it's two-sided because the more you know, the more you learn, the more you can have cause to look back and wish you'd done whatever it was differently last time.
(03:25):
On the other hand, it can also work in reverse and it comes closer to whatever the incident was and instantly you think, "Oh, I wonder if there was something different I should have done then."
So it can attack you both ways and it can definitely stay with you very painfully for a very long time.
(03:47):
I'm sure you've experienced that too and I have.
I can look back and remember lots of incidents in the past when I was still learning my approach and I may've lost animals that I would've done something different later.
I can still look back and think, "Oh, that's so sad, if only I'd known."
But it doesn't hurt as badly because I can forgive myself and I guess that lies at the bottom of the whole discussion, doesn't it?
(04:16):
It's about forgiveness.
We learn a lot to help ourselves forgive others.
But we don't really address the forgiving our own selves for something that inadvertently may have happened or not been done.
I think maybe that's part of it.
Does that go anyway at all to answering the question?
Karen Wylie (04:36):
Oh, absolutely!
I think forgiving yourself especially for what you didn't know at the time you experienced something that you're grieving about, the loss of a pet that you love is part of learning how to make peace with it.
Although as you're saying and I'd have to agree, you can make peace with a situation and then at another time another thought sneaks in on you.
(05:02):
You have to rethink everything through again.
Hindsight is part of what's sneaky, I think, because we always think we have 20/20 hindsight when we're reflecting about so many things in life.
But when it comes to our losses, it's like we fill in some of the gaps which we're able to do over time because we learn more.
(05:25):
If we learn more from other losses, we learn more from our relationships.
Then we start applying it back to situations in the past and we then really— we re-injure ourselves when we hold ourselves to those standards.
In fact, the reason I even was suggesting this as our topic today is because at our "Cuppa and Conversation" event last Thursday which everyone is invited to by the way.
(05:53):
One of our regular attendees was talking about the fact that in reflecting about the day that we were meeting, that it was the 15th anniversary of the loss of one of her pets.
She brought up the fact that there's so much that she knows now that she didn't know then.
How that was making that anniversary of loss difficult all over again 15 years ago.
(06:21):
That certainly resonated with me when she was sharing that because I've done that to myself so many times.
Probably all the time in many different ways and you do have to somehow get yourself past it.
We take those memories and it's like we start filling in the gaps with what we know now and didn't know then but we make ourselves think we should have known.
Gail Pope (06:47):
I guess it's that old word "balance" because as you're talking, I'm thinking actually I just jotted down two experiences that for me really stand out as "I didn't know any better" or "I could have made this work." I think part of how we can work towards handling that and it's such a difficult, such a big thing to address but we talked about forgiving ourselves.
(07:15):
I don't think it's quite so much about forgiveness for us and what we did or didn't know but it's about honoring the memory of the being who died and putting that in front of "It was my fault", or "If I'd known better".
Then when that hurts, it's like a knife goes into your chest at that time.
(07:37):
Then starting to think about how beautiful that being was and what a lovely relationship.
Then you can gradually weave in, we both did our best.
We both loved each other and maybe there was a reason.
Maybe it was an experience I was meant to have it.
You can start to push the spiritual aspect out a little bit because sometimes there is a reason and it helps you learn and it helps you to be a better version of who you are.
Karen Wylie (08:06):
And to extend that just a little bit further, you and I would not be recording these podcast episodes or creating BCA.
We had all these experiences and you were already doing it for so many years in terms of providing educational materials for people to capture what you learned from your experiences and sharing them.
But it's only been the last few years that I was like, "Oh, I've got all those years. I ought to do something with what I learned." Of course, that's when we met years ago and started thinking about what we could do together.
Gail Pope (08:39):
That's the reflections, isn't it?
You start to reflect back on all the things that you did right or wrong that you didn't know.
It even brings up new things for you that, "I'd really like to learn more about that now".
Karen Wylie (08:54):
We're always learning about new things, always these days.
One of the thoughts I had thinking about regrets is how many more regrets I had with sudden death situations as compared to my hospice care situations.
(09:14):
So the speed of the event seems to play a big role, or at least it has for me.
The pressure is on.
You've got to identify what's going on faster.
You've got to get help and support and treatment faster.
You have to make the right decision faster.
If then the death happens very suddenly, then you have a very compressed time period that you're remembering and it's *Gasp*.
(09:40):
Whereas when we are in situations where we're able to offer hospice care at home to our pets as they're aging, as they're dealing with a chronic diagnosis or something that's difficult to manage day to day, and certainly a terminal diagnosis.
(10:01):
I have fewer regrets in those losses because there's just more time.
There's more time to say what you want to say, to think about what you want to do, what your pet would want you to do.
Time is such a luxury and that's one of the things I advocate for hospice care, both for humans and for our pets.
(10:22):
Because I think it lends to
I can't say easier grief.
Grief is never easy.
But it does for me lead to fewer regrets.
Then the grief is different and not as painful and I don't re-injure myself as much with rethinking, "Oh, I should have done this. Oh, I should have done that. I should have known."
(10:50):
So for me, although most people who listen to our podcast or watch us know that we focus on Palliative and Hospice care, there are people who also have experienced sudden losses with their pets.
So I do think our feelings then and what we experience fall into two different camps.
Gail Pope (11:08):
Yes, I think so.
I hadn't really thought about it, but again, I keep jotting things down here, and what I hadn't realized is that the stories that are coming into my mind as you're talking, every single one of them was to do with the speed of death.
It was fast and it wasn't expected, and it was shock.
(11:30):
Shock was a huge part.
That made me also think of the times when something happens, could be a cat, could be a dog, could be a bird,
happens to be in the road just at that moment and gets hit by a car and killed.
That hasn't happened to me.
I've seen it happen to somebody else and that hurt me.
(11:52):
I think I experienced the same pain as the person who actually was driving the car.
So I can barely imagine had I been the driver.
I think that there's so many different aspects to this subject that we're talking about.
But yes, I think the speed of death—
(12:16):
gosh, stories are floating in my minds of the ones that I look back and regret.
One, for instance, was the most wonderful, adorable old lady called Ebony.
She was a huge, black, rounded, sweet, fuzzy, lovely girl.
This was I guess during the days where I was learning about euthanasia versus a natural death.
(12:41):
She was having a long, slow, difficult journey toward the end of life, and I finally made the decision to euthanize her.
She was euthanized at home on the couch in my arms
and as the euthanasia solution went into her, the look on her face has never left me.
(13:08):
She did not want that ending.
It was really clear.
The veterinarian who euthanized her actually voiced that as well and said, "Oh my God, that was just heartbreaking."
So I hadn't thought about that in a very long time.
But I guess as we are talking about those things, two or three other stories actually, not about euthanasia, but to do with speed of death are floating back in.
(13:35):
So I guess they never go away.
These are from way back when in years and years ago.
So I can imagine, I mean that pain still stabs and I guess it always will.
Maybe those are learning experiences.
I guess they are.
We learn from these kinds of experiences but they are part of the rich tapestry of life, aren't they?
Karen Wylie (13:56):
Very much
Gail Pope (13:57):
They really are.
We don't invite them.
We don't want them but they balance our lives.
They make us more careful, more everything, perhaps.
Gosh, Karen, what a difficult subject this is.
How could you do this?
Karen Wylie (14:12):
Aren't you glad that I picked this topic today?
Gail Pope (14:16):
Oh, grief— it does sits hand in hand with grief and it's these kinds of grief situations are difficult to revisit.
Karen Wylie (14:25):
They're very difficult to revisit.
I think as time goes by for us, since we experienced a particular loss,
it's like we start thinking we had more control in that situation than we did in real life.
So we're thinking it through and we're analyzing and our logical brain is just moving along when in reality in the moment with so many situations with our pets, we are not in control.
(15:05):
We don't always know that we're not in control.
We might be trying to be in control.
Doing our best to handle everything and juggle everything just right.
But I think when we're looking at situations, months or years or even decades later, that illusion of control interferes.
(15:26):
Because when we're that emotionally distanced from the events, we think more and feel a little bit less.
It doesn't mean the grief goes away but we're not in the moment of grief.
So we use, like I said earlier, we use our brain to re-injure ourselves with our thoughts and our new knowledge of what could have been, should have been done and so forth.
(15:51):
As you're so good at reminding us in so many of these situations, we have to have some self-compassion which very often we don't.
I think a lot of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else in our lives.
But when you tell us to remember that we've done our best, it helps to hear that in the moment, but then again, later on we can still keep revisiting and reinjuring ourselves with all these regrets.
Gail Pope (16:29):
I'm sitting here with things floating back into my mind from the past, oh gosh.
But one thing does occur to me is that these things do come to us to teach us.
I have an interesting memory.
It was not an easy or nice death and I don't harbor the regret that I didn't know because there was nothing I could have done and I didn't know.
(16:55):
But I was asked to take in a cat who was very ill.
He actually had come from a veterinary office and when he was clearly getting worse, one of their vet techs came.
To check him over to see if there was anything that could be done and couldn't find anything wrong.
(17:16):
Long story short, anyway, he died mainly because his bladder had burst and nobody knew that it was a problem.
That was horrific for me.
That was really awful to know that his actual death wasn't that awful as it turned out.
But knowing the reason for it as something that could have been helped sat with me for a long time, and it hasn't come back into my mind.
(17:44):
As I'm sitting here thinking now, when I look at over the years since then, I have had a steady succession of animals, cats who have come to me for rescue because they needed to have their bladders manually expressed.
I keep saying, "Why is it that I attract these animals?
(18:06):
How did they find me?
How do the vets find me?
How did ordinary people find me for rescue?" Duh.
Now I'm looking back and thinking that was my beginning.
Isn't that's curious?
I'd never thought of that before and how that might work.
Karen Wylie (18:27):
That's so interesting that you bring that up because I had that situation occur just a few years ago where all of a sudden I had a three-year-old cat whose belly was very bloated.
So of course I rushed into the clinic and I knew it was bad— that kind of bloating.
(18:49):
Whether it's congestive heart failure or FIP or so many different they're bleeding internally— they're bad off.
The vet came in and it was not my regular vet who I think very highly of.
But the vet came in and said, "His urinary tract is blocked and unfortunately this happens to cats that are overweight."
And I was like, "No, he's not overweight.
(19:12):
That belly is not from being..." and long story short, she didn't do a belly tap until 12 hours later after she tried to unblock him five times and his bladder had burst and the bloating was all the urine in his belly.
So that is one of my deaths that I revisit because it was sudden and out of my control.
(19:37):
But I keep revisiting that moment in the exam room when she said, "Unfortunately this is what happens when cats are overweight. I should have fought harder. I should have demanded that the belly tap be done."
It's just I re-injure myself every time.
So it's interesting.
Gail Pope (19:55):
We just can't know, can we?
We can't know everything.
Then we feel a burden of responsibility that we didn't know.
The older we get, the more we do learn.
I live with my cat, Purrci, who can't urinate.
He can't defecate either, so I'm responsible for both.
Every single time I go to manually express his bladder, something up here, I didn't even remember that story, but it's there because the fear is always in that moment, "what if I can't express him?"
Karen Wylie (20:26):
Me hearing your story, triggered things back.
Triggered that memory for me to come in and realize that I'm not showing myself the compassion I should.
Because I did the best I could at the time.
So as a little caregiver educator— heal thyself.
Gail Pope (20:45):
Exactly.
Just sitting at my desk while we are talking, I just glanced over on this side and I have a wonderful cure for these kinds of things.
Can you see that?
*shows plush toy saying "Laugh Often"
Karen Wylie (20:56):
Oh, I do— "Laugh Often."
Gail Pope (20:59):
And that's the greatest cure of all.
Somebody gave him to me, a few years ago, and he's a little dirty and tatty, but he has to stay on my desk because I need this.
I need it.
He's just so beautiful.
Karen Wylie (21:15):
And especially given the topics that you and I talk about and preparing materials for pet parents.
It's a lot of heavy topics and yet we do find ways to remember things that put a smile on our face at the same time.
Gail Pope (21:31):
Yes, very much.
It's all part of living and learning, isn't it?
Living, learning and loving— the 3L's.
Karen Wylie (21:40):
Absolutely, because there's just so many parts of caregiving that are outside of our control.
We try to
provide some help.
Through the educational materials we do through this podcast and discussing things but in reality there are so many things outside of our control that we have to come to terms with.
(22:07):
And so as I always do, I ask you to provide the last word in this discussion and so I'm curious.
Gail Pope (22:21):
You've got me just sitting here and part of me is dwelling in the past.
Part of me is dwelling in the future, and I can almost see the scales sitting here of our lives.
There's the pluses, the minuses, the ups and the downs, the disasters, the successes.
You know, it comes all the way back to that word Balance.
(22:47):
In order to have balance, we have to have love for ourselves and for others.
Then because of the topic, forgiveness, we have to forgive ourselves.
We have to forgive others.
We have to know we did our best and we did learn whether it was something we wish we hadn't learned, we did learn.
(23:11):
So I think really that's about all I would come up with because it's such a difficult and poignant subject that affects absolutely every single person in the world.
I can't believe that there's anybody who doesn't look back on a something, that has left them with that feeling of "Ugh".
It's being human.
(23:31):
It brings us back to the center of ourselves.
It's almost brings us back into what who we are and where we are.
It's almost like a new beginning.
We have to accept it, forgive, love, and move on.
But it stays with us because these things help build who we are, don't they?
Karen Wylie (23:50):
They do.
Hopefully as you've said, whatever we learn through these difficult experiences, we're then able to share with others in some way.
Help a future pet of our own and just keep moving forward and remembering how much we loved those pets and had wonderful experiences and not be so focused on the end, but it really was about about their whole life.
Gail Pope (24:16):
You know what just in finishing, one thing that does occur to me is, although these kinds of conversations are difficult and a little scary, they're very necessary and we don't have them.
These are the kind of things that at like our Cuppa and Conversation meetings, they're the kind of things that people can come and talk about.
(24:41):
Because these are the things that should be talked about but we hide behind the word death.
It's good to actually have someone that you can come and talk to.
So come and talk to us.
Karen Wylie (24:53):
Absolutely.
We not only have each other to talk to about these things but we talk with other people too.
If you would like to join us this Thursday or any Thursday, we meet at 10:00 AM Pacific time.
If you visit our BrightPathForPets.com website, right there on the homepage, you'll have some information about how to join us and we hope that you will.
(25:17):
As always, thank you for being with us.
Gail, thank you for a very enlightening conversation today.
I think we've explored some new things that we haven't explored previously.
So I think that's always hopeful for us and hopefully for those who listen or watch us.
So thank you for being with us and we'll see you next time.
(25:37):
Bye-bye.
Gail Pope (25:38):
Thank You.
Goodbye.
Thank you for joining us on Peace of Mind for Pet Parents.
We hope today's episode has offered you support and insight as you care for your aging or ill pets.
Remember, it's not just about the end.
It's about living well at every stage of life.
To continue your journey with us, explore more resources at BrightHaven Caregiver Academy's website— BrightPathForPets.com, where you'll find guides, assessments, and a caring community of pet parents like you.
(26:15):
Until next time, may you and your pets find comfort, connection, and peace in every moment.
Take care.
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