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.