The hardest thing to ever do is say goodbye...
My Raider, a 110 lb golden retriever, turned 9 on April 18th. Sadly on his birthday we had to take him to the vet because he was having trouble breathing at night and had another ear infection (hes been fighting them all his life). The vet wasnt sure what the breathing was about so he took blood tests to test for things like cushings and hypothyroid and we went home with antibiotics and ear medicine. The results came in the next day that everything was good except that his thyroid was on the lowest possible level of being considered normal. A week went by and he got worse... he was throwing up because of the antibiotics.. and his legs got weak and started to collapse on him... he had been on Rimadyl since feb for arthritis... so he spent the day at the vet and got iv antibiotics and antinauseou medicine and they took xrays of his chest and abdomen... the chest was clear but the abdomen xray showed an enlarged liver so another blood test was run and everything still came back normal... so he was put on thyroid medicine...
wednesday he was great and back to his own normal self... but on thursday he couldnt walk well... so we thought it was because of his arthritis...
by sunday he couldnt stand to go to the bathroom... he only peed once the whole day but was drinking a bowl of water about every hour... he only got up about 3 times the entire day...
on monday morning he stood up and we got him into my car and went to the vet... at the vet they were shocked at how badly he was doin... it all happened so quick... the vet examined him and was going to admit him and give him iv antibiotics and different pain meds and take xrays of his hips... we all thought it was either really bad arthritis or problems with his hips.... before doin that he squeezed his back leg and tested his reflex in his back legs....nothing... he didnt even flinch no matter wut... so he said that it was neurological so only an mri would show that... so it was off to the specialty vet an hour away... though leaving the vets office ive never seen him walk better and faster...
we got there and he walked into the room with us helpin a little... once there he walked around the room so we were hopeful that it was just a disk problem and some surgery would make him all better... the rude insolent vet came in and barely did much of an examination and said it was arthritis that they would check his hips but we would just need to be more on top of givin him his Rimadyl... too bad the only time we stopped it was when he stopped eating on sunday... i even told her what our vet had said and she just dismissed it like i was a moron...
4 hours later she called back to say it wasnt orthapedic but was neurological... and that hed need an mri... so we said ok and he had to spend the night... the very first night hes ever been away from home... and the next morning she called to say that they did blood work to see if he would be ok for the sedation for the mri and it showed that he was anemic from 37% down to 30% and that it wasnt a good sign but we still went ahead wit the mri... a few hours later she called back to give us the worst news... they found 2 tumors on his spine... and that we could bring him home and make him comfortable so his last memories werent of the hospital...
about an hour later she calls back to say that while they were bringing him out of the sedation he spiked a fever of 107 and they were coolin him off and wetting him down and icing him down to bring it down but it didnt look good... so we decided to go visit him and let him kno that we didnt abandon him...
when we got there they had us wait til there was an empty room where we could visit wit him... ok good sign.. then we got into that room and they had us wait... then after about 20 mins of waiting they said they couldnt bring him up wed have to go to the back to see him... so we went into the icu to see him... he looked nothing like himself... they had him in a cage on his side and had the iv hooked up... he was all wet and he was sleepin so deeply we thought that he was still sedated... to make it worse they had to keep the oxygen mask on him to help him breath... he didnt even stir when we started petting him... after about 10 mins he finally opened his eyes and looked at us then went right back out... the vet said his fever rose back up and hit 108... they werent sure if there was going to be any brain damage and that he had yet to urinate and they thought his kidneys were shuttin down... we had no choice... that wasnt our raider... so we made the decision to put him out of his misery... they put us back in a room and they then wheeled him into the room... he picked his head up and looked at us all... it made me think that maybe he could pull through and it wasnt as bad as it looked... but he went right back out as we were petting him...
the vet says it was the right thing to do when we put him down but why does it feel like i killed him? maybe i shouldnt have had the mri... why did this have to happen to him... and so quickly... i dont understand it....
now as i type this im sittin here watchin my cocker spaniel staring out the window like he lost his best friend... and he did... the house never seemed so empty...
