A Terminal Diagnosis for Your Beloved Pet & What You Can Expect

One of the most difficult situations a pet parent can face: Your cherished animal received a terminal diagnosis. What can you expect? What do you do now? How can you best support your loved one? What is the best way forward for our family? These are just a few of the many challenging questions that a terminal diagnosis raises.

It’s important to remember that a terminal diagnosis does not always herald death, and most often not death in the very near future. Sometimes a few changes to health care and daily living can initiate a whole new period of healing, which is all about restoring balance and harmony to the body, mind and spirit by igniting and working with the body’s natural healing abilities.

At BrightHaven, we focus on achieving a state of wellness, joy or balance whether for continued life or for transition. Our Menu for Healing, which forms the foundation of our work, focuses on the best quality of life at all stages. The goal is to achieve optimal balance of body, mind and spirit. We concentrate on helping the being to be the best they can possibly be, regardless of age, illness or species!

Before We Continue…

PLEASE NOTE: We at BrightHaven are not veterinarians and are therefore not qualified to give you professional veterinary advice. We have, however, been helping our animals holistically for many years, aided by numerous talented professional practitioners.

We recommend that you always consult your family veterinarian in matters concerning the health of your animals. Any sign of pain in your animal should be immediately addressed with your veterinarian

However, we are honored to shares some guidelines to help you make choices with awareness and with love, based on the BrightHaven perspective of living well every day, regardless of circumstances.  

Common Milestones of a Terminal Diagnosis & What You Can Expect 

 At BrightHaven, we feel privileged to have helped over 600 animals through their last chapter of life. They taught us so much!

Based on our experience, here are typical occurrences in the terminal diagnosis journey: 

• Wake-up Call – noticing changes in your loved one’s health and wellbeing
• It’s all about love and support and it starts with you – making self-care a top priority to best support your animal
• At the vet’s office – the practicalities – understanding your loved one’s health condition and what you might expect to happen
• Finding and planning a way forward – determining how you can best support your animal on this new journey by evaluating important considerations including pain and suffering, will to live, quality of life for living and dying, etc.
• At home and making your decisions – identifying key factors and gathering input. There’s no one right approach or answer – it depends on many factors unique to each situation.
• Understanding pre- and post-death grief – finding comfort in feeling and processing your grief

 And one of our most important recommendations is to educate yourself – knowledge reduces fear and increases conscious decision making, and in turn may minimize regrets.

Above all, listen to and trust your intuition and follow your heart!

Healing vs. Cure

From BrightHaven’s perspective, there’s a difference between curing and healing. Curing is typically thought of as achieving the absence of symptoms. Conventional medicine uses medication, surgery or other forms of external intervention to attain this outcome. However, it is important to keep in that the suppression of symptoms does not always mean the underlying causes of a disease have been addressed.

Holistic medicine looks at healing as an internal process, focused on becoming whole. Again, it is all about restoring the balance and harmony to the body, mind and spirit by igniting and working with the body’s natural healing abilities. This approach yields many benefits, including resolution of symptoms. A cure occurs when the body is able to fully heal itself.

At BrightHaven, our goal is always for healing for the highest good of the patient, which may or may not include a cure. For some, the healing experience we offer brings about improved health and a new-found love of life. For others, healing is a necessary preparation to complete the circle of life, death and the journey beyond.

BrightHaven Self-Care Precepts for Navigating a Terminal Diagnosis

This intimate journey with your loved one will be very rewarding, and likely very challenging at times. That’s why self-care remains a top priority.

At first glance it may seem odd to you that we make this recommendation. But think of it this way: How can you be there for your beloved family member throughout this amazing and at times exhausting journey with its many ups and downs, if you’re not taking care of yourself?

Well, you can’t! You want to be as physically, mentally and emotionally balanced as possible under the circumstances, so that you can make clear-headed and conscious decisions.

Here are some supportive tips:

• Reassure yourself you’re doing the best you can and you’re doing it with love –that is enough!
• Be willing to reach out for help.
• Let go of fear and guilt.
• Do what you can and then let go.
• Keep in mind that panic is not a helpful energy.
• Realize that your initial choices may change along the way as your animal’s condition or situation evolves, and as you gather additional information.
• When contemplating a decision, put yourself in your animal’s position and think about what you would want if you were them.
• Understand that dying is a process and you have time to think.
• Meditate, even for just a few minutes, to enhance your wellbeing.

BrightHaven Resources to Help You on This Journey

We’d love to help you navigate your beloved pet’s terminal diagnosis and share what we’ve learned in over 30 years of caring for animals.

Here are some of the key benefits you will receive:

• You will appreciate the importance of self-care for you, the caregiver, and how it helps your animal.
• You will learn ways to promote your animal’s healing – defined as an optimal balance of body, mind and spirit – regardless of the circumstances.
• You will have a deeper awareness of the grieving process.
• You will better understand what death is and what it is not. You may even come away with a deeper acceptance of death, which may help you to live more fully!
• You will be empowered to make and implement informed, conscious decisions regarding your animal’s health and wellbeing, and plan a way forward that fits your unique situation following a terminal diagnosis. When choices are made with awareness, the possibility for future regret is greatly reduced!

This useful information is available in two different formats:

BOOK: Follow Your Heart: Navigating a Terminal Diagnosis – Available on Amazon.

ONLINE, SELF-PACED COURSE: BrightHaven Holistic Animal Hospice: Navigating a Terminal Diagnosis – We partnered with Holistic Actions! to make this presentation available.

Both resources offer practical advice for the caregiver that’s useful at the vet’s office as well at home again with the family. With some guidelines from the BrightHaven perspective of living well every day, they compassionately address important considerations and options as the way forward is planned. And they also explore the possibility of hospice care and the natural dying process.

And remember, love is an essential and powerful part of the healing process!

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. —Willa Cather

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BrightHaven Caregiver Resources to Help Your Animal Live Well Each and Every Day!

ANIMAL WISDOM FOR LIVING WELL!

In a time of so much change and chaos, with old ways of being and doing undeniably falling away, animals can show us a much better and more authentic way to live. Find out what they’d like to share in GRATEFUL for Animals: Spiritual Comfort & Wisdom in Life’s Last Chapter, available on Amazon. (Authors: Gail Pope, BrightHaven President and Founder; Carol Howe Hulse, BrightHaven Education Program Manager)

• Do you have questions about how BrightHaven’s holistic healing or animal hospice care approaches can help your animal? Do you wish to discuss end-of-life concerns and options? We invite you to book a consultation for experienced and compassionate support.
• Follow Your Heart: Navigating a Terminal Diagnosis – helps you walk this often-challenging path with a deeper sense of peace, confidence and clarity. (Author: Gail Pope)
• The BrightHaven Guide to Animal Hospice – learn how to care for your animal companions in their Golden Years and through the end of life. (Author: Gail Pope)
• Soar My Butterfly: The Animal Dying Experience – a simple guide to the signs and symptoms you may encounter during the final stages of the natural dying process. (Author: Gail Pope)
• BrightHaven Online Learning – help your loved one live the best life possible each and every day! We share what we’ve learned about holistic healing, animal hospice and living and dying well by following the wisdom of the animals since 1990.

• Walking with My Dog Through (End of) Life – an intimate look at a profound life passage, from terminal diagnosis through hospice care and a peaceful, gentle natural death. (Author: Carol Howe Hulse)

For more resources and information to help you help your furry family member, please visit BrightHaven’s Caregiver Resources & Education and Animal Caregiver FAQ.

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