Dee Dee's Day

 

Dee Dee was really struggling last night. Her chest and belly were swollen with fluid and she was short of breadth. It was obvious she was uncomfortable. This morning she ate just enough food for me to hide her meds inside, about a teaspoon. Then she turned her nose up on the main course. She's done this a time or two before, so we decided to take her to the causeway.

When that didn't work, we decided to call the vet and ask about his suggestion to drain the fluids from her chest with a needle. 

It's interesting how desperate you get when it's near the end. I think we both thought last week that we wouldn't do that since it had almost no chance of changing the outcome. Folks on the outside might say, "Why bother? It's not going to change anything. It will just prolong the suffering." I might have even said that myself. But when it's you or someone you love, you cling to any lifeline that's thrown your way, no matter how temporary or tenuous it may be. What if it gives her a few hours, or days, or even a week without discomfort? 

When I see her walking on the causeway or sleeping or coming to the door to greet us, it's really hard to think, now's the time to euthanize her. Her mind is all there. 

Some might think it's selfish to keep her alive; some might say it's selfish to end her life too soon to be spared from feeling sad.

The right thing to do is not clear. That much is clear. 

Living with sadness is hard. But I pity those who close their hearts to love as the only way to guarantee never having to feel that sense of loss.

These scenes above are from her second trip to the Island today, just before her drainage procedure. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed the outing.

The scenes below are from after her procedure. You can see the shaved areas where they inserted the needles.

The doctor was disappointed with the results. He said he got 50 cc's of fluid from one side and 7 from the other. That's about a single handed splash of water from your cupped hand. He said he made several attempts. He was reluctant to keep poking for fear of interfering with vital organ functioning. He said it must be in pockets he could not reach. He did say it was a mixture of fluid and blood. He's sending a sterilized sample to the lab for analysis, and that will tell us more about the origins of the fluid, though he is very confident that it's heart related.

He's going to call Wednesday to tell us the results and to check on her. He said that we can try the drainage again if we want and there is a food supplement we can try that increases a dog's appetite.

We are taking it all in.

She was finally interested in eating. She had a little snack, then her meds, and then a decent-sized portion of wet dog food.

The vet tech apologized for her bad haircut job. I told her not to worry, everybody has bad haircuts these days.

Dee Dee was a bit clingy, so I got her dog bed out of the car and put it at the table. She really liked that. I don't know why we didn't think of that before. With Dexter, we used to have dog beds in every room (first child syndrome!)

She's behind me now resting comfortably. I think everyone is going to sleep better tonight.