The End Is Near, Cancers winning Options

[Murphy's Mom]

About 3 months ago in october we found out our dog gabriel had prostate cancer. A week later we found out he had cancer all over. It has been hell watching him waste away before my eyes and there is not a single thing I can do. We have him on steroids and pain killers but the last couple days it seems the medicines are not working so well anymore. I think we are almost at the end of the road. I watch him walk out to the yard so slowly limping on his one leg and wonder if we are just being selfish to keep him with us. But when I see him barking and trying to play with our younger dog, still interested in eating and just seems ok for now. . . how can you put him down. How can you end his life when he still has so much in him and I just cant. I know that it sounds I think he was still willing to go on as of yesterday but today. He just does not look well and I just see that look in his eyes that same one my other dog had when it was her time and it kills me. Because I am no tready. It is so hard to think about saying good bye but I think it is almost time. I never knew how painful watching cancer take a life could be. It is the worst thing I have ever been through. It is a constant rollar coaster of emotion. Thinking hey he is doing better today but knowing in the back of your head there is no such thing as better with this. He will not get better and it hurts. It just hurts. You know you grow up taking care of these wonderful creatures. The ones that layed by your side on lonely nights when the kids were not so nice at school and they kissed your face when tears were rolling because everything was going to hell at home and now they are the ones who need the comfurt and I cant do anything to help. I do all I can but nothing I do will make it go away. I know he will soon go to a better place away from the pain and the discomfurt. But I cant help but miss him so much for all he did for me for so many years. God is truely taking my angel away.

[Ernie]

How I grieve for you and understand the toll cancer can take. I made the decision you are faced to make and I waited like you did and I see it all today like it was yesterday.

My Jake died 8 years ago this year. He had osteosarcoma of the knee.

There are not enough pages or words to describe Jake but he was loved and very special but I would like to tell you if don't mind.

My husband and I adopted him from the humane society as a puppy he was a lab/dalmation mix. He was born with hip dysplasia, we had both hips done when he was young and then when he was five he hopped through the yard and landed on this big hug rubber toy and tore the ligaments in one knee, we had the knee wired. When he was 9 I noticed a lump on his good knee and called the vet, the outcome was osteosarcoma. I will never forget that day, he took jake back while I waited and returned without him and told me the prognosis and I didn't know at the time what that was and when he told me I lost my balance and sank to the ground. He said at this point it will grow and get huge and he won't be able to walk on that leg, well that was his good knee that the cancer was growing on and I was devastated, he said he could live a few more years with it amputated and I was horrified by that suggestion. He had lived longer then his first vet had said he would, he gave him five years with two hip surgeries and a knee wired.

I took him home, told my husband and cried, we kept him alive for two weeks and it grew the size of a soft ball. The day we made the decision was a Friday, I called the vet Thursday and my husband, myself and his parents spent the day with him, he was fine, he was happy, he was eating but he couldn't walk anymore. We gave him all his favorite foods the last hour of his life, I will never forget the look on his face and his tail wagging the whole day. I always wonder if that meant he knew this was it and no more pain. We got him in the car, drove to the vet, had to wait an hour in the car with him till the vet was ready, he wasn't going alone, thats all I knew. I have never done this before, I lost my Sam a year earlier to AIHA and he died at home so I never experienced another loss much less a decision of ending a life. We got him in a room, he layed down on the floor, looked at all of us, wagging his tail, the vet came in to administer a tranqualizer and he couldn't hit a vein, it took four times and by then I was gone, crying, saying no I can't do this because everytime he poked jake and couldn't get a vein he would look at me and wag his tail. Finally he drifted off, and I never held him when the last shot was given I was so gone and I never held him when he had his last breathe and I regret that, his last knowledge of his mom was hysterical crying.

Jake was so many things and so special and loved by the whole family, my in-laws loved him so much that they were there the day he died. He is buried in my heart forever.

I cry now as I type this and my heart goes out to you in this time of grief because I know. I haven't cried about Jake in awhile. You will be in my thoughts tonight and tomorrow and know that you have many friends here that know what you are going through. Sorry for the long drawn out story of Jake.

Lots of hugs,

Cindy

P.S. A few days after Jake died I called the vet that had done his surgeries on both hips and knee and told him. I thanked him for giving Jake his life and forever be grateful for all the years he lived.