The Final Goodbye

This picture is hanging as a large canvas print above our living room overlooking the room she spent the greatest amount of time waiting for us in some way and in some manner.  For a game of frisbee, for dinner, for breakfast, to go out, to go bye bye and to leap into our laps and howl at our return.  She would sit on the couch on the top edge of it and survey her world and the world outside of our house and watch whatever was out there to see. She could see all areas of our house and that was her spot. She would be the light of the room with the howl of the sweet sound of her voice.  We miss that about her the most.
The final hours of her life were hard and the removal to have her cremated was even harder but we were relieved to have something to do.  The hospice veterinarian who couldn't make it in time and who we had to call and tell her that she had passed was so helpful and recommended the cremation service they used and we called them.  They were wonderful. There are no words and no way to express the appreciation we had for them being there and able to take care of her.  They sent someone right away, despite it being Labor Day and so we had a few hours with her laying on her bed with a blanket over her. Before they arrived, our friends unexpectedly showed up, the closest friends we have to family and with them they brought their compassion for the loss of our puppy.  My friend Marcia who loves animals gave me a rose and my friend Cindy and Frank hugged us.  It was like the death of a family member and they treated us like it mattered just as much and we will forever be grateful for them and for their wonderful compassion.
The representative of the cremation company came and he showed respect and compassion towards our loss and made it much easier to handle the steps we were going to take to let her go.  He explained everything to us and we had chosen an urn beforehand by looking at their website so we made sure that he had that information and then he carefully and respectfully wrapped her up as if she was an egg crate and put her in his car and she was gone.  It was the final goodbye and it was so sad.
We sat around talking about her and how she had been the light of our lives and how we were not able to get anyone in to help her in time, which was one of our many regrets.  How we would do things differently and maybe next time, if there was another time, we'd choose differently.
We decided to go to breakfast and then we came home to an emptier house, quieter, made so by her loss.
A few days later we had the urn delivered to our beloved veterinarian's office and it arrived in a tiny bag but with the most beautiful urn with her ashes in it and it was bittersweet and we cried on the way to the car.  In the bag was the certificate of her death with the Rainbow Bridge poem and it was somewhat comforting to know she was home.  We put her in a place of honor in our living room and there she is with a photo of her nearby.  We sometimes can look at it and remember her but it's still with pain and still too soon to be comforted by it, but one day we will be.  It's still too new and too raw to get past the loss.  She was taken too soon and we are mourning her loss every day.  Now we face the loss of her Mack the Osteosarcoma dog and it is with such pain to acknowledge that they are too temporary and taken too soon.  We love you little girl, Punky Pete and Energizer Bunny, you were loved before you were born.

Oreo Foster

July 2001 to September 2013

Memories

 She looks up and thinks no Mom not again, not the camera...please don't make me look at it!

 She was this picture.  Always ready for that romp with us, the wild look in her eyes and the extreme energy she always seemed to have.

 She was such a beautiful dog with a great personality.  She was never sad or down. She was always happy to see you and she always greeted you with a howl and a bark.

She was the sweet dog you dream of and the dog who wanted only to love you.  She did that.
She was the energizer bunny until her 12th birthday and she gave it her all.
We miss her so.

The Last Goodbyes

I came back to this blog with the full intention of finishing it and as I checked on the titled page above, I saw that there was nothing but a blank page...some how that is so fitting the end of her days.  In the earlier post I pretty much recounted all that had gone on the night before.  It was just a late night when I put her in the bathroom and put up the gate. I said my good nights and she didn't look up at me, I petted her and she was nothing but skin and bones.  I don't think there was a major moment with her after this last battle. She had had enough, of me, of the vet visits and of all the things we tried to give her.   It was going to be a long night and so I went to bed. But as all things go when you have a very ill dog or even person, the caregivers can hardly sleep a fitful and sound sleep and I had to have woken up so many times during the night and gone back to sleep.  But in the early hours of Monday the 2nd of September, for whatever reason I woke up and out of a very sound sleep this time.  I had this gut wrenching feeling that if I went to the bathroom I would find her gone.  Something compelled me to get up and it was so early for me, something I was not used to and since I was tired I thought I'd get up much later but it wasn't meant to be.  So off I went to the bathroom and there she was almost laying half on and half off of her bed, almost exactly where she was the night before with the only difference being that she had gone to the bathroom several times and had terrible diarrhea.  It was so pitiful and so sad to see her this way.  I took down the gate and had her get up and go outside and she managed to make it outside and she peed, and even with all the awful diarrhea she didn't have any on her which was a major feat with all that was in the bathroom.
Sadly we went back into the house and her back legs looked like rubber and she went immediately and directly to the closed door of our bedroom and she looked up at me as if to say, please let me in...I felt so awful because I was worried about her having an accident, but something in her look told me to give her this one thing.  She went to her water bowl and drank some water which I took as a good sign that she was still hydrating herself and I was concerned about that and then she made her way to her crate and climbed in.
She laid down on her side and put her head down as if she had been awake all night and fell asleep.  Because the bathroom was a hazard zone, I went to work cleaning it up and putting things in the wash and trying to get this weird and overpowering smell out of the room. It had such a strange smell and looking back I remember putting on latex gloves to clean it up and now that I know that much of what she had excreted was part chemotherapy drugs, I'm glad I took some precautions with it. It was such an odd smell that if I smelled it today I think I would be nauseous.  It took me a good while to clean it up to a level that was clean enough and sanitized so that we could safely go into the bathroom and during that time, I would constantly go in and check on her to ensure that she was all right.  I noticed only that she had moved over to the very edge of her crate up against the wall and with her back facing the opening.  Constantly checking on her allowed me to see that something about her breathing changed from the earlier part of the morning and now about three hours later she was breathing rapidly and with shallow breathes and then I knew.
To say it was crystal clear that she was in distress is an understatement, but for whatever reason I literally pulled her out of her crate, bed and all with her on the pad and pulled her to me and I knew then we were losing her.  I called to Bob to call the hospice people and try to get them there and we debated whether to take her to the ER, but I remember telling him there wasn't time.  In my heart, at the time, I knew we had waited one day too long even though she had just gotten out of the ER the day before, we were too late to make arrangements.  The hospice doctor on call was wonderful but she said that the only doctor on call was about four hours from getting to our house and they would do what they could.  I wouldn't leave her and held her in my arms and watched as our little girl lost her hold on the present and began the journey to leave us.  Looking back it wasn't that it was a long time from the time we tried to get someone there to the time that her spirit left us leaving a huge void in our hearts.  I remember holding her in my arms and crying over her and telling her to let go and it was ok and how much we loved her and how we tried so hard to keep her with us.  Such inane words when you know they probably don't understand anything we're saying, but my emotions were raw and we were so hysterically sad.  I held her as she took her last breath and then I felt the flutter of her last heart beat and then she was still.   Later I noticed that her eyes were slightly open and when I checked back her eyes were closed and I felt like I should have stayed there until that happened, because I was  so worried she was still with us and I had left her too soon...but I think it was just the body going into the last muscle relaxation that would happen once the heart stops and I sat near her and petted her still body.  I think a few more times as we called to make arrangements for her cremation and pick up I would go by her and pet her still soft fur and look at the tiny little dog who had been such a huge part of our lives. A quiet stillness descended on our house that was the void she left us with. It was a strange experience to realize this little life was such a huge part of our energy here and without her it was too quiet.  As if her spirit held such a huge chunk of space that without her,  we imploded.
 Sadly I tried to get our other dog to come in and see that our little girl had gone. I wanted him for some reason to know that she had died and that he had to know this. In life he was always cowed by her and in her death it was no different.  He would not come close to her or even try to sniff her, he even tried to get away from me and her and I didn't want to force it.  I covered her with a blanket with her little head sticking out as if she was just sleeping and she really did have that appearance. She had her front legs stretched out and as if she had finally found comfort.  Much of what we had to do wasn't done yet, but the silence was roaring in our ears.

The Final Days

Little girl or Punky Pete or even the little Energizer Bunny was a strong willed, stubborn and funny little dog at times which served to make treating her difficult when it required pill giving, force feeding or even bathing. As the picture so easily suggests her look was do it and you die...

Sadly on the last night of her existence I force fed her and while I hated doing it I knew that without it she was wasting away. If I had known the end was so near, I would have left her be, allowed her some peace and quiet.  If I could have chosen a better way, her last memory of me would not be one of force feedings and cramming pills down her throat and I believe she was upset with me for all of these things. Towards the end when I tried to go near her she thought I was going to "do" something to her and she would run from me.  It broke my heart because she had always come to me for comfort when she was afraid and that one thing we shared was changed.

We had gone out earlier in the day on Sunday the day before Labor Day, but had come home early to spend some time with her and to make sure she was ok. We were hopefully watching for any improvement and we kept saying let's just see how she does tonight and then let's see how she does today and on it went.  When we arrived home she had pooped and it was terrible diarrhea and I spent a very long time cleaning it up off the carpet in my office...this was the first time she had had this after six weeks of chemo and it was awful.  I cleaned it up only to see her have it again outside and it was like a shooting stream.  We again attributed it to all the IV fluids she had had and the two chemo drugs they had given her in the last week.  That night, Sunday, she wasn't showing signs of improvement and if anything she seemed very weak.  I force fed her a very tiny, minuscule amount of food, barely a full syringe and she fought me all the way and I noticed as I tried to give her food, her back legs were giving out and she was falling over. Again we thought only that it was weakness and it made sense since she hadn't eaten much in the last week.  I figured that feeding her was the only way to restore the strength she had lost and I was determined to fight the battle for her even if she didn't want to.  I don't  know what she might have been saying, but looking back I think she was tired of it all and just didn't want anything to do with eating or taking pills.  But we aren't given knowledge until after something happens, and I feel as if I was misinformed as to how seriously ill she was.

So that night we watched her on the couch, where we had to put her to keep her in our view and she pretty much stayed there, hiding under the pillows which was not unusual for her and sleeping somewhat comfortably, we thought.  The only other indication that something was just not right was when she got down off of the couch and was so weak that she nearly hit her head, she laid down right where she landed and had her head partially off the ground and was not able to find a comfortable position.  We both looked at each other and said pretty much at the same time, this doesn't look good, but again, we kept thinking the poor thing is probably so tired and weak, what could we expect...and because she was suffering from what appeared to be uncontrollable diarrhea we needed to be sure the pill we gave her worked before we could let her stay in her crate so we put together a soft and comfortable spot in the guest bathroom and planned for her to spend the night there. In all of the time we'd had her she had NEVER been put anywhere but near us or with us or in her crate at night, so to have her tolerate this without crying and whining, was unusual and we hoped she would be ok there.

It hurts to think that I made her spend one of her precious nights left in a strange place and without us near but we were trying our best to minimize the damage she could do with diarrhea and possibly vomiting so we put her where we thought we could easily clean up and keep her safe and that was the only alternative we had at the time.

Little did we know what a struggle she was having and we would not know until the next day.

The Slow Loss of Our Little Punky Pete

Oreo Foster

July 23, 2001 to September 2, 2013 

As you can see the photo on the canvas is of our precious girl Oreo.  I didn't write much in the blog during the time of treatment for her because I was stressed beyond words and words would not come. She lost her battle.  She declined faster than expected and we lost her on Labor day when no one was available to come to help us with her transition. I cannot say it was truly "peaceful" and probably when I look back and I've done a ton of that, she was suffering and leaving us in increments the days leading up to that Monday.

It was a long two weeks following her treatment with the last drug on the 13th. During that time she managed to do pretty well with only one bout of vomiting that she didn't repeat again.  But we took her in for her next treatment and they gave it to her and she was acting like she didn't feel well. I took her to the ER so many times because she was not acting herself. She was not eating at one point and hadn't eaten for a few days and I knew that something was wrong. The oncologist and the ER vet both suggested we do an ultrasound and when they did that they administered another chemo drug and and this was after having gotten the last one only four days before.  I'm not sure and will never be convinced that was a good thing at that point. I would have suggested we stop the chemo at that point and give her a rest from both and not have given her the two so close together. But the oncologist said she had failed the protocol and we were desperate.  So unfortunately she got the two drugs in less than five days and normally they wait a full week. Looking back and again I've done that a lot, I would have asked that they just not do that and hold up until we could get her back on her feet. But they didn't and she didn't get back on her feet.  So when the last of the chemo drugs was administered she ended up in the hospital on IV for a few days. Since it's been almost a week from all of this happening I'm not getting it all straight in my head or on this blog, but it was just over a few days when we knew that she was too ill to do much more. The oncologist said if we can get her to next Tuesday which would have been the 3rd of September, we will give her the drug that is used for the cases where they have resisted the treatment and they need to be given something totally different.  There was an outside chance of about 40% of it working but we were willing to go for it and we hoped that with the hospitalization that she would regain some strength and have a turnaround.

By Sunday, the 1st of September, the oncologist checked on her and said he felt confident that she could go home and was doing well. Her demeanor was good and she was up and wagging her tail at him and we could come and pick her up that day.  I drove there by myself and when I saw her I wasn't convinced that this was the same dog I knew and loved. She didn't have her tail up and she wasn't happy to see me.  She existed and that is how I would describe her. She came with me outside and she went to the bathroom and that was the only time I saw the tail up and then she tried to get into the car herself and even managed to stand on the console like she normally does, but by the time I had her in the car, she was laying down with her head hanging down.  I attributed it to no food for a week, IV fluids all weekend and just a general malaise, but to see her was like breaking a piece of my heart off and stomping on it and I could not get over the nagging feeling that something was terribly wrong.

What we didn't know was that she was having diarrhea and when she finally did go she was losing fluids rapidly and we attempted to give her a pill on Sunday night which I had hoped would control it. But to give her a pill at this stage of the game, she was having none of it and would not tolerate my attempting to do it, but what I thought was a successful pill insertion turned out not to be true, and unfortunately I wouldn't know this until Monday the 3rd.

This Journey We Are On

It's been a while since the last posting so let me try to catch up and give my shortest overview if possible of the goings and comings that have gone on since the very first post and the beginning of this journey.

First off, she survived one of the worst scenarios you can have with a dog or anyone for that matter, septicemia.  My own mother succumbed to the same disease process and that is what took her life, so to have a small, just under 10 pound dog beat the most aggressive form of blood poisoning after undergoing a resection of her small intestine because of a perforation caused by a 4 cm tumor, is beyond remarkable.  She recovered and within two weeks was jumping (I couldn't stop her) and running to go outside.  We tried to control that behavior for a huge amount of time but by four weeks the surgeon said, she's good to go.

We agreed to surgery only because we were told we would have to agree to give her chemotherapy during her recovery and afterward or there was no point in putting her through the surgery. After giving our consent we watched as they ran into the room to give the surgeon the go ahead. They made sure we knew that the only way we could proceed was to agree to the 16 treatments of chemo and that was her only option.   We agreed.  At that moment we were not ready to let the little girl go.  So she surprised us with her ability to bounce back from a surgery that was basically exploratory in nature and stem to stern stitches with her entire belly opened.  She literally came back to life and she was given the first of many chemo drugs the first week after surgery, and she got through that as well.

But now we're on week five to almost six...Not really sure if we are on the upswing of the process or the downswing of the treatment, we're not really sure, but the oncologist gave her a drug that on most blogs and support groups on FB and other social media sites is one of the roughest to have and to get through.  So far, which is to say we've had some rough moments, she's tolerated the last four, the fifth has been a butt kicker.  The most obvious sign of any issues has been the lack of appetite and the nausea.  Thankfully we have an anti-nausea drug, apparently the Cadillac of anti-nausea drugs and the most common one they give, that by the end of the day allows her to feel up to eating dinner. But for the most part the drug's effects have worn off by morning before her next dose and she is not into breakfast at all.  She will turn her head away as if to say, nyet, when this was the dog who inhaled her breakfast and treats without tasting much of anything.

She is hovering at the 9 lb. weight level and without weight gain we are at a standstill.  Weight gain being the benchmark for recovery in some cases, she is barely able to maintain the weight she has.  The noticeable part is the skinniness of her back and sides. She is small anyway, but it's so obvious that the weight is not sticking with her. We give her more than her brother Mack, and often times he's the recipient of what she turns her nose up at, so he's put on some weight, which is ok, because after his cancer 8 months ago, he'd lost some weight as well.

So it's been an up and down process with her obviously not feeling great to her willing and able to play frisbee which she chooses to do when we are watching television and she is in her usual spot with her frisbee close by and watching me with one eye.  They watch for patterns and cues that tell them what time it is and what is next, so sure enough during the night, she knows this is the time we play frisbee and she has actually gotten up and dropped it at my feet, saying it's time. This is a good sign and we play until she is tired, which hasn't been that long because you can see she is tired more quickly than before.

To be honest we are facing an uphill battle, she has lymphoma and to be truthful I have no idea what stage or degree of cancer involvement because they have not shared that with us. But to find that they have started her on the most aggressive of the entire arsenal of chemo drugs gives me cause for concern and yet I've since read that the one particular drug they have given her this time has been successful in controlling and eliminating the cancer cells it seeks to destroy more effectively than any other drug.  It's just too bad that the effects are such that she suffers and doesn't feel good enough to eat that makes me crazy from the very start of the day till the end of the day when she wants to eat.

I felt the other day that maybe I was doing a disservice to her after all.  Who would wish this on their best friend and companion if they didn't have a say? Who would put their beloved pet through this torturous route and figure well, I'm getting a few more months with her?  I began to doubt my original thoughts about giving her the chance she deserved and then she grabbed her frisbee and I knew that for the time being I'm doing something that is giving her some precious time and maybe she is truly happy and we go to the next day and start all over again.

Sweet Oreo, fight on little girl. We're here on this journey together and we will do what you ask us of us no matter how hard it may be.  Just as long as you grab your frisbee and play we'll keep up the fight for you.

This is the story of our little Maltipoo Oreo.  Her name was chosen long before we knew there would be a little black and white dog and before we even knew if the breeder was going to have a female with those markings, but sure enough, God knew our desire and she was born.  My first meeting with her didn't go as planned, because she was so little and so feisty and so active that when we left, I accidentally hit her with my foot and she went sliding across the floor. She came right back and put her butt in the air and thought it was play time again. We knew then she was going to be our dog.  Since that day she has been in constant motion.  She doesn't sit, stay or lie down long before she is up and looking for her toy, the famous frisbee. That toy has been the sole toy of her existence. We have to buy one every so often because she tears them up so much to the point of threads.

Her personality is one that says she is the Alpha dog, unfortunately with our beloved Mack, we didn't let her become the Alpha dog and we tried hard to tamp that behavior down. But she is the Queen Bee in the roost for sure. She quickly became the lead with most things, but she never did manage to take over the bed entirely.

She has a loving and sweet personality and she is one of those dogs that smiles at you when she is happy to see you and she grins from ear to ear and you laugh when you see her. She brings that joy into every action she exhibits and she is that whirly gig we all call the Energizer Bunny, she doesn't stop.

She loves to lick everything there is that is associated with you or your clothes, licking has been her habit since day one. She would lick and bite your fingers and toes when given the chance, but you had to yell, don't bite so she wouldn't chomp down on them.  She would pick up pine cones and carry them when the pine cone was larger than she was and we would have to make her drop them in order to come inside. She would find something on the floor and before you had a chance to stop her, down it would go and we prayed that anything she ate actually would come back out.

Such a little ball of fluff and yet she was so determined no matter what it was she wanted that she would find a way to get up on a couch, a bed, by leaping up and leaping up till she managed to make it and then would jump down without concern for height or fear of falling.

She would dance and prance, throwing her head back as if to say, well, come on let's go.  She understood all of our commands, but chose to ignore them until she was ready to do whatever you wanted of her. She would usually come on the third "come", and from then on, it was always three times to get her in the house.  She would turn her head and listen to your tone until it sounded more urgent or madder, then she would do as you asked.  What a personality.

Well she is still with us but this is a story that started the day we took her to the emergency hospital and found out she had intestinal lymphoma.

This is our journey along with her brother who is a cancer patient as well, another blog, another tale.

It will be my way of going through the process with her to tell her story and how we joined the road to wherever we are going, the unknown, a dark and unlit path...with the telling, maybe there will be a light.

Let's go Oreo, let's beat this thing we know as lymphoma and be a success story of survival and recovery. You go Little Girl, Punky Pete!