Jan and I were married 34 years ago today, but we are hardly celebrating. We had to euthanize our dog Lili, who was 14 years old and spent almost all that time as a healthy and happy pooch. She was definitely a member of our family.
But she was suffering terribly.
A few months ago she developed a blood-red eye. We took her to two vets, our regular one and a specialist but neither one was able to accurately diagnose what was wrong. We had eye drops which helped a little but she was still having problems.
Then, back in August, she developed what seemed to be a head cold, with sneezing and nasal discharge. Again, no firm diagnosis, nothing was really helping.
This past Tuesday we took her to a vet that was able to do a CT scan and a rhinoscopy and they discovered she had a large tumor that was imminently going to break through the roof of her mouth. We were awaiting the results of the biopsy, scheduled for early next week but she took a sudden turn for the worse.
As the saying goes, we fail slowly and then all at once.
She was clearly having trouble breathing and was not eating (perhaps, the vet said, because she could no longer smell). Still, she seemed to be hanging in there, and we were awaiting the results of the biopsy to see if something could be done to shrink the tumor and provide some relief.
But last night she really suffered. She was having so much trouble breathing, and clearing phlegm from her throat that she came upstairs (“her” couch downstairs was her bed) and stood outside my bedroom door, loudly suffering.
I took her outside, tried to get her to eat, gave her a pain pill but she just kept looking at me with those big, suffering eyes asking: Help me dad!
But I could not help. All we could do was gather her family and put her out of her misery with as little extra pain as possible. She literally died in our arms at about 11:45 am this morning and that is as much as I care to type.
RIP, my good friend.