Dog Days
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Thursday, February 21st, 2008‘We can all have breakfast together now,’ I say brightly but my heart aches with emptiness.
Two nights ago I was awake from 2am sitting with my poorly dog.
Last night I was awake from 3am, grieving for her.
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‘Defa doesn’t seem quite herself this evening,’ I say to Matthew as he gets home on Monday. We both look at her. She’s looking at us expectantly, greedily, for food, for something, anything. But he knows better than to contradict me given I seem to have developed a sixth sense about her well-being.
Sure enough, the following morning I find Matthew clearing vomit off what looks like the entire kitchen floor. Later a friend calls, but looking across at the dog I tell her I don’t want to leave Defa and invite her round instead. At lunchtime the vet does what he usually does - an anti-emetic and tells us to bring her back the following evening if she is dehydrated - and I take her home. But she continues to be sick. By the morning she is struggling to get the one step to her water bowl. At the vet’s they admit her and put her on another anti-emetic and as she is now on a drip, some opiate painkillers.
I have learnt to read the tone of voice of the various vets. Tim is relentlessly upbeat and I have learnt - the hard way with Brin - not to trust his optimism. Sarah is more candid but often guarded. But Jane, a locum, admits Defa today and when she calls saying there has been no improvement I can’t tell whether her slightly downbeat tone is normal for her. I feel gloomy and ask her to call me if her condition deteriorates but when I hang up I try to remain optimistic and hope she will be better in the morning.
A couple of hours later and the on-call night vet calls me. ‘It’s bad news about Defa,’ she says and I stupidly think how, if she is deteriorating, I can bundle the children in the car now as they have finished eating and go and see her. ‘She died sometime in the last twenty minutes after surgery closed and me checking on her when I arrived.’
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I am grateful that, in between the acute episodes of pancreatitis, she was in rude health. Even on Monday she was as well as she has ever been, chasing deer, birds, anything that moved, in the field. I am grateful for the love and loyalty she showed me. I am grateful for knowing for the last year that she was terminally ill and I could cherish the moments with her. I am grateful for her dragging me out on those bloody awful early morning walks while the rest of the family had breakfast together in the warm. I am grateful for just knowing her.
But I am indescribably sad that after nine years of near-constant companionship, she died alone, without me, without anyone even in the room with her.
That hurts. Terribly.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong, Dog Days
Enjoying these days
Thursday, November 22nd, 2007The dog is home and until last night was doing basically okay. Tuesday’s test confirmed pancreatitis and a shortenened life expectancy.
Today she is very sick again. If she is going to be repeatedly sick and/or in and out of the vet for stressful overnight stays we will have to consider her quality of life. If she gets an acute episode and the vet cannot manage her pain levels we will have to make an instant decision about putting her down.
At least I am prepared for the worst. There will be no taking her in to the vets and expecting treatment and instead being told we must euthanase her.
And I am making the most of her company and enjoying her presence knowing that she will likely not be here much longer.
Still. Not a good week.
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Posted in All Gone Wrong, Dog Days
As if the last year hasn’t been bad enough
Thursday, November 15th, 2007Almost a year ago to the day, my beloved dog Brin started showing clinical symptoms that, unbeknownst to us, would mean she only had a few weeks to live. Those of you who have been long term readers will know how terrible those few weeks were for me.
Today, my other beloved dog Defa is lying in intensive care at the vet with complications relating to the same liver disease. For the last three days she has been vomiting, depressed, in pain, not moving and unable to eat. It’s very hard to watch her suffering, not knowing whether this is the beginning of the end for her too.
Further tests next Tuesday will confirm whether she has acute pancreatitis but the prognosis is not good since the medication she relies on to keep her liver disease from progressing rapidly may be causing the pancreatitis. She may also require a low-fat diet to keep the pancreatitis under control but as she is already on a low-protein hepatic diet, I’m not sure what that leaves her in terms of nutrition.
She hasn’t been allowed home today but I’m hoping they get her condition under control so she can come home tomorrow where at least I can sit with her and reassure her and try and nurse her back to some sort of health.
If that’s possible.
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Posted in Dog Days
Where nothing ever good happens
Monday, October 15th, 2007I’m at the vet. Defa quivers almost uncontrollably because she knows, quite rightly, that nothing ever good happens here.
‘She’s lost quite a lot of weight, hasn’t she?’ the vet comments as the scales struggle to settle on the weight of the shaking dog.
‘Should I feed her more?’ I ask, knowing that she doesn’t look overly-thin but realising that she has lost a lot of weight. Her medication is clearly making her carry her weight differently.
He feels down her ribs and stomach. ‘She’s not overweight and it’s good that she’s not because that has its own health problems. But…’ He pauses. ‘It might be a good idea for her to carry a bit of extra weight so that when she starts having a few days when she doesn’t feel like eating, she’s got that weight on her.’
I stop, taken aback by what he has said. This is the dog that eats anything and everything. That will sit outside ALL DAY waiting for someone to come and play ball with her. That literally springs off the floor in excitement and joy. The dog that makes it hard to remember that she has liver disease. When I think of canine liver disease I think of Brin, who was so poorly that her last few weeks, even before we knew what was really wrong with her, were such a terrible struggle. When I think of liver disease I think of the guilt and tears of last December.
So hearing the vet talk about the day when Defa won’t want to eat, talking as if it could be any day now, makes my eyes involuntarily prick with tears. I don’t want to think about the day she starts that quick and inexorable decline but today I can’t help it.
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Posted in Dog Days
Guarded
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007This week we heard that our surviving dog, Defa, also has liver disease. Her prognosis is guarded: she could have as little as a year with us or she could live much longer, they can’t say until the worst happens.
I have spent a lot of time with her - perhaps too much time - in the last few weeks as she and I have grieved for Brin. We walk and walk in the spring sunshine and it is here I miss Brin the most, away from those who know I am not dealing well with her death.
And now to think my other dog may suffer an early death too is devastating.
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Posted in Dog Days
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