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.