More Guilt About Pepper Options

[Trulie]

When I first told my story about Pepper I was so overwelmed with guilt over things that happened that day that I didn't mention that in the end the vet asked for permission to euthanise her. I have been thinking alot about it now and I think I tried to block it because this is the worst guilt of all. I will start at the end of my story (whole story in my posts). After Pepper lied down on the floor of the vet and had heart failure, her tongue was blue and she was not responding to us, the vet swept her up and took her to the back to give her oxygen. I wasn't in the back. They called my brother and I in shortly later and said they couldn't save her. When we went to the back she was lying on the table not moving and barely breathing and the vet and the assistants asked us for permission to euthanise her. They seemed desperate to get our permission for this. I kept saying are you sure there is nothing that can be done. My brother finally said yes to proceed. I asked him again are you sure, the vet said she was now suffering. She had just been diagnosed with a heart hemicarsicoma and it was 7 cm large the ultrasound specialist had said in his report to consider humane options, but I only saw the report after not before all this. The thing that bothers me is she kind of jerked a couple of times and I don't know if it was before or after they gave the needle as I was so distraught, but now I keep thinking maybe she was only comotose and she would've come out of it. I almost felt like the vet was pressuring us to agree to euthanise her, maybe because he had seen the ultrasound report already. Maybe she could've survived this and been around for a few more weeks. My Mom says the vet does not want to euthanise dogs and would only have said this if there really was no hope. Still I am starting to feel guilt over this now on top of all the other guilt I was feeling. I just keep thinking that she moved, and I keep thinking maybe she was coming out of the coma like state and now I put her to sleep. I know her time was limited, but any extra time would've been special to me as she died so unexpectedly that day.

[myhrtisbrkn]

Trulie,


What you are experiencing is normal. in your sorrow and devastation you are trying to make sense out of this terrible, random, irrational thing that has happened to your sweet baby girl. The tragedy of it all, is that there is no reason for it. Pepper was killed by HSA, not by anything you did wrong, or anything you failed to do.

Most likely, from what I have read about hemangiosarcoma in the two+ years since it took Mack from us, when Pepper collapsed it is because the tumor in her heart had ruptured. She was bleeding out, into her heart and around her heart. That must have been terribly painful. It certainly was a deadly injury to her heart that she could not have survived.

Your Mother is right, the vet didn't want to euthanize your baby. That was simply the last and only thing he could do to help her.

Once again, I'm so sorry about your baby. I know how much you hurt!

Love and prayers,
Dayna