How do you do it?

I feel like the worst "mom" in the world for taking Bugsy to be spayed yesterday. She's a cat; she has no idea why she's being taken some place and handled by foreign faces and worse still, put through pain. I know this is the most common proceedure, but I am having a tough time getting my mind around what I have had done to her. She came back to us very drowsy and drugged up with a ridiculous cone on her head. Her first attempts to be mobile were so sad. She walks into things all the time and even now that the drugs have mostly worn off, she has no idea what this obscene thing around her neck is.

I confess I caved in and took it off for a while this afternoon and let her scratch her own neck and wash her face. It was also the first she had a chance to eat anything. Now the cone is on she looks depressed and sits with her one eye wide open like sleep is never going to come...