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.
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