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I'm tired, I'm hurting, and I just lost my poor little gi...
3 years ago
General
The past two weeks, ever since my birthday, have been... nothing short of hell. From all of the well wishes and the love I got, to this... absolute fucking nightmare I've been currently dealing with, and I don't know what I did wrong to deserve it.
We found out that our little girl, Maisey, had something called protein losing enteropathy, and it was caused by some underlying issue. We believed it to be something to do with her kidneys or intestines, so she was given a bunch of medication to take and an adjusted diet. All we needed to do was take care of her and things would've been okay, right?
Well, both parents had to leave town to move everything across the country for my sister so she can go to university, so all of that extensive care now fell upon me. During that period, alone and anxious, she slowly deteriorated - she barely ate anything despite the vet saying she'd want to eat more because of the steroids, she barely drank anything despite saying she'd drink more on the prednisone, she barely moved... she was horribly sick, and we had no idea what the underlying cause was for this PLE.
Just a few days later, a main line clog made it impossible to use the bathroom, and the tub and toilet started flooding with sewage water backup. We were told someone will come by the next day to fix it. When they came to fix it, the guy said there was a leak in the toilet, dismantled the thing and left the open sewage pipe there... which flooded the bathroom, the carpeted hallway, into the master bedroom, under the wall and into the closet beside the bathroom. Had to use every towel we owned to try and keep it from going further, and it took 2 hours of flooding for someone to decide to come back, notice the flooding, then show up to vacuum ONLY the tile flooring with their industrial vacuum... and not the carpet. So we had to chase the guy down, make him come back and actually vacuum everything out properly.
The next several days were just... cleaning. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Mopping floors, remopping floors, vacuuming and shampooing carpets, revacuuming and reshampooing carpets, laundry load after laundry load after laundry load. And yet we still didn't even have our bathroom usage back until a day after that. Around four days total without a toilet, a shower, a sink.
Maisey just kept getting worse, and worse, and worse. After a while, she stopped eating what little chicken she would take, she wouldn't eat any of the chicken broth rice we were told to make for her by the vet, she wouldn't even take treats... not even fucking treats, man... the only thing I could get her to stomach was some little cut up hot dog... and that was it. I tried everything I could, literally everything, and nothing worked...
I had to take her to the vet to get more bloodwork done, but immediately, I noticed she was acting a lot differently from the night before... she was stumbling, running into the wall and fridge, I held little hot dog bits in front of her and she swerved and missed the food that was right in front of her... I brought it up to the people at the vet, but they downplayed the wobbling. Supposedly she had episodes like this before and it was due to anxiety, that she needed to be calmed down and cradled close. So... I spent the next three hours on the couch... holding her close... just whispering to her that she would be okay, that I was there... but then I got a call from the vet again, and the blood tests came back. None of the medicine was working. Her white blood cells were too high. Her red blood cells were too low. She was at risk of sudden bleeding. Her proteins were all off. She needed to go to a proper hospital ASAP. My heart sank. I knew it was coming.
I only just got my license not even a month ago, and I had to take her across the city to this hospital, where they checked her vitals before we sat together... just me and her in a personal waiting room for almost 5 hours together... for the first time in what felt like weeks, she was falling asleep after struggling to, and I knew the writing was on the wall. The vets confirmed it from there... abdominal bloating from the PLE, kidney damage, heart murmur, weak breath, her entire right side of her body was delayed... so we found the reason for the sudden PLE - brain tumor. My parents are still on the other side of the country. I can't possibly let my sister watch our dog just... die in my arms... so I had to do it all alone. At 12:34am, she passed, squirming in my arms, and there was nothing I could do... not a single thing...
I always joke about hating my dogs... my parents are terrible at training them, they make a lot of messes so it's a constant battle to clean up after them, and they're little dogs so when one starts barking, they ALL start barking. Sometimes it can be annoying, and of course I get irritated at the lack of effort to train them right. But at the end of the day, Maisey really grew to be my favorite of them all. At first, she HATED me. She attached herself immediately to my mom and barked at me every single time she'd see me, growling... but after a few months, the protective bark turned into an excited one... every time she'd see me... she'd bound over blankets and lick my hand before randomly starting to bite me, almost like Grynn would other folks. And I'd always make a big huff about it like "WHY ARE YOU BITING ME, MAISEY?!" but I'd always let her nibble my finger with her half-gummed mouth. She had the most personality of all the 3 dogs, she was the last of them to be adopted... and the first to die. All I could do was hold her close and try to make her last moments not as terrifying... but I knew they were... overnight, she lost neurological function, she went to her least favorite place twice, and her favorite people, Mom and Dad, were nowhere to be found... they had been gone for two weeks... and were never there to see her to say goodbye... only me.
We sincerely thought she could recover, live a more lethargic life for a few more years, eat different food... but she's gone now. And she's never coming back.
I'm not going to be in a good place for a while. I'm really sorry.
We found out that our little girl, Maisey, had something called protein losing enteropathy, and it was caused by some underlying issue. We believed it to be something to do with her kidneys or intestines, so she was given a bunch of medication to take and an adjusted diet. All we needed to do was take care of her and things would've been okay, right?
Well, both parents had to leave town to move everything across the country for my sister so she can go to university, so all of that extensive care now fell upon me. During that period, alone and anxious, she slowly deteriorated - she barely ate anything despite the vet saying she'd want to eat more because of the steroids, she barely drank anything despite saying she'd drink more on the prednisone, she barely moved... she was horribly sick, and we had no idea what the underlying cause was for this PLE.
Just a few days later, a main line clog made it impossible to use the bathroom, and the tub and toilet started flooding with sewage water backup. We were told someone will come by the next day to fix it. When they came to fix it, the guy said there was a leak in the toilet, dismantled the thing and left the open sewage pipe there... which flooded the bathroom, the carpeted hallway, into the master bedroom, under the wall and into the closet beside the bathroom. Had to use every towel we owned to try and keep it from going further, and it took 2 hours of flooding for someone to decide to come back, notice the flooding, then show up to vacuum ONLY the tile flooring with their industrial vacuum... and not the carpet. So we had to chase the guy down, make him come back and actually vacuum everything out properly.
The next several days were just... cleaning. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Mopping floors, remopping floors, vacuuming and shampooing carpets, revacuuming and reshampooing carpets, laundry load after laundry load after laundry load. And yet we still didn't even have our bathroom usage back until a day after that. Around four days total without a toilet, a shower, a sink.
Maisey just kept getting worse, and worse, and worse. After a while, she stopped eating what little chicken she would take, she wouldn't eat any of the chicken broth rice we were told to make for her by the vet, she wouldn't even take treats... not even fucking treats, man... the only thing I could get her to stomach was some little cut up hot dog... and that was it. I tried everything I could, literally everything, and nothing worked...
I had to take her to the vet to get more bloodwork done, but immediately, I noticed she was acting a lot differently from the night before... she was stumbling, running into the wall and fridge, I held little hot dog bits in front of her and she swerved and missed the food that was right in front of her... I brought it up to the people at the vet, but they downplayed the wobbling. Supposedly she had episodes like this before and it was due to anxiety, that she needed to be calmed down and cradled close. So... I spent the next three hours on the couch... holding her close... just whispering to her that she would be okay, that I was there... but then I got a call from the vet again, and the blood tests came back. None of the medicine was working. Her white blood cells were too high. Her red blood cells were too low. She was at risk of sudden bleeding. Her proteins were all off. She needed to go to a proper hospital ASAP. My heart sank. I knew it was coming.
I only just got my license not even a month ago, and I had to take her across the city to this hospital, where they checked her vitals before we sat together... just me and her in a personal waiting room for almost 5 hours together... for the first time in what felt like weeks, she was falling asleep after struggling to, and I knew the writing was on the wall. The vets confirmed it from there... abdominal bloating from the PLE, kidney damage, heart murmur, weak breath, her entire right side of her body was delayed... so we found the reason for the sudden PLE - brain tumor. My parents are still on the other side of the country. I can't possibly let my sister watch our dog just... die in my arms... so I had to do it all alone. At 12:34am, she passed, squirming in my arms, and there was nothing I could do... not a single thing...
I always joke about hating my dogs... my parents are terrible at training them, they make a lot of messes so it's a constant battle to clean up after them, and they're little dogs so when one starts barking, they ALL start barking. Sometimes it can be annoying, and of course I get irritated at the lack of effort to train them right. But at the end of the day, Maisey really grew to be my favorite of them all. At first, she HATED me. She attached herself immediately to my mom and barked at me every single time she'd see me, growling... but after a few months, the protective bark turned into an excited one... every time she'd see me... she'd bound over blankets and lick my hand before randomly starting to bite me, almost like Grynn would other folks. And I'd always make a big huff about it like "WHY ARE YOU BITING ME, MAISEY?!" but I'd always let her nibble my finger with her half-gummed mouth. She had the most personality of all the 3 dogs, she was the last of them to be adopted... and the first to die. All I could do was hold her close and try to make her last moments not as terrifying... but I knew they were... overnight, she lost neurological function, she went to her least favorite place twice, and her favorite people, Mom and Dad, were nowhere to be found... they had been gone for two weeks... and were never there to see her to say goodbye... only me.
We sincerely thought she could recover, live a more lethargic life for a few more years, eat different food... but she's gone now. And she's never coming back.
I'm not going to be in a good place for a while. I'm really sorry.
I hope she finds eternal happiness in Heaven.
As long as you think of Maisey often and fondly, she will never truly be gone.
It's heartbreaking because I couldn't stay next to them when they fell asleep for one final time. I wasn't expecting their death either. It was sudden. There were some signs that something was a bit odd, but never too much. You did your best for her last moments. And thanks to you, she didn't leave while being alone.
Take all the time you need to feel better after what you've lived through. It may be almost a week now, but I might suppose that the tear is still present in you.
Take care of yourself. Be well. And may Maisey rest in peace.