I Lost My Best Friend Keesha Recently Options

[trevor]

Hi everyone, I lost my best friend of 13 years about a month ago. I've been lost without her. I found this site a couple weeks ago and its been a Godsend as its helped so much to know that others loved their pets and miss them as much as I do. I was beginning to think I was crazy. I finally feel up to actually post my/Keesha's story. I had to have my lab/husky mix put down on July 1st and the pain has been unbearable since. I still can't believe she is gone.

I adopted Keesha from our local animal shelter in 1996 when she was 8 weeks old. She was the best dog a person could ask for. Other than going to work she did everything with me and anyone who came into contact with her loved her. Well on Sunday night, June 28, I let her out to use the bathroom before going to bed. A few minutes later I hear her crying so I run outside to check on her and see she's holding her front left leg in the air and appeared to be in a lot of pain. I carried her inside and called the vet. she said she probably just sprained it but if she's not feeling better in the morning bring her in.

She wasn't feeling better the next morning so i take her in and the vet immediately determined she broke her leg....she did an x-ray to confirm it. She told me she would need a plate put in and they don't do that locally. She got on the phone and attempted to set up surgery but nobody had the right supplies in stock and it would be atleast two or three days before they could get them in(which baffled me how none of these places had the right equipment and my poor dog is suffering with a broken leg). Anyway my vet calls me Tuesday morning and found a vet that could do the surgery....although it was 4 hours away!

So my wife and I borrow her sisters mini-van so we could put Keesha's bed in the back and she could have a somewhat comfortable 4 hour ride to this place. So we finally get there.....my wife takes the x-ray and paperwork inside and I sit on the back of the van with Keesha and comfort her. The technician comes out a few minutes later and asks me if my vet said anything to me about cancer. I told him no and asked him why. He said he's never seen a dog break their leg in that area unless they were hit by a vehicle or something along those lines....never just trotting outside. So he was going to go take a digital x-ray to see if they could say for sure. He picks up Keesha and away they go.

He comes back out and says he still can't tell for sure and they won't know until they go into surgery. If its cancerous he said they could amputate her leg and depending on how much its spread i could still get 6-12 months with her. So we were going to do that if they did find out it was cancer. I hated the thought of my baby only having three legs and most likely ending her days of going on walks with me but it was better than the alternative...putting her down. Anyway, they couldn't do the surgery until the next morning and wanted to keep her down there that day so we decided to go home and would come back on Thursday morning to pick her up....best case they don't find any cancer and go ahead and put the plate in and worst case they see a cancerous spot and amputate her leg but i still get 6-12 months with her.

They call me at work the next morning and say they still can't tell if the spot by the break is cancer so they were going to go ahead and put the plate in...obviously good news. Twenty minutes later the surgeon calls back and says he found a large tumor on the other side of her leg and a hole where the cancer started eating through her leg.....causing the break. My heart sank....he told me they could go ahead and amputate the leg but its most likely spread to her chest and lungs by this point and I'd get 3-5 months at the most and where bone cancer is so aggessive she would go down hill fast and it would be very painful for her. He recommended eutheninizing her while she was already under and she wouldn't feel a thing and would go out peacefully. As much as i didn't want to do that I realized it was best for her so that's what we did.

Besides missing her like crazy the worst part of this is I wasn't able to say good-bye to her. I feel now like i took her down there and left her with a bunch of strangers to die. Her last 16 hours on earth were with people she didn't even know. I feel horrible about that......the last time I saw her we were sitting on the back of the van and then they grab her and take her off so fast i didn't even get to kiss her or say good-bye.....Now I'm second guessing myself thinking i should have atleast drove the 4 hours down there and had the vet let her come awake long enough for me to see her one last time and say good-bye to her the way she deserved after the 13 great years she gave me. Would that have been fair to her though to wake her up just so i can say good-bye and then putting her through the whole euthenization process?? I don't know but I just miss her so much and hope she knew how much I loved her! sorry this is so long..my apologies. Just feels good to vent. Thanks for listening.

[lynette]

That is such a beautiful letter Trevor. Made me cry because I understand all too well how you feel.

We could have let Hunny live longer too and possibly with one less leg also. But I couldn't bear to see her struggle. Hunny was a very proud dog. She was so mad last year when she had to wear the e-collar for months. At times, the look in her eyes said "just shoot me now - I hate this thing". She lost two toes to cancer and the vet said if it returned her only option (if she was a candidate) was to amputate her whole leg. I know she would have hated that. And I think she would have hated us for doing that to her. Fortunately she wasn't a candidate (if you call that fortune!!!). She was overweight, older and had arthritis in her hips. We decided last year that we wouldn't start cutting anymore off of her. But we had eight extra months with her, the vet wanted to put her down last summer. And if the cancer had spread, we would have had no choice, but it hadn't. I'm so grateful for the extra time we had with her. And we cherished everyday even though it was terribly stressful - and it was. I changed bandages at least once every day for two months. Hunny hated it. She loved being outside and walking through every mud puddle and ditch there was. Try keeping a bandage clean and dry in those circumstances!!! And last summer was a very wet one. Poor Hunny, she couldn't go outside without a plastic bag on her foot. I know she absolutely hated. I'm sure she felt humiliated. When I look back at the photos that we took of her since she got sick, I can see the sadness (or pain - not sure which one - maybe both) in her eyes. I know she didn't want to go, but I think she wanted to be with Lily. I know she missed Lily so much. I think she hung on for us. She was very stubborn too.

She was on painkillers for the last month. I know she needed them, because I cut back her dosage one day (just to stretch the pills - cheap and stupid and I hate myself for being so cheap). But when I did, she started coughing and this obsessive licking. She would lick whatever she was lying on, sometimes her foot. I could never tell if she was in pain or not, but the licking made me think that she was in quite a bit despite the painkillers. So, I upped the dosage again. She never did stop the licking. The coughing stopped though. But by then she had a huge mass on her chest, so it must have spread to her lungs.

My parents had a dog die of liver cancer many years ago. Jane suffered so much in the last week. It was awful, and I promised that I would not let Hunny go through that. We had two young pups in the house and we were afraid that she might snap and hurt them if the pain became too much. I hate that this was one of the reasons we let her go, but we had to consider the welfare of Barney and Casey too, right? The tumour on Hunny's foot was wide open, it was just as if someone had sliced the side off of it. And she couldn't walk without it bleeding. That had to be painful for her. We didn't bandage it this time because that meant that she would have to wear the collar again.

I remember telling her each night for the last week or so, that Lily was waiting for her and that she could go if she wanted to. That we would miss her but we understood if she couldn't fight any longer. This part makes me feel so bad, cos obviously she didn't want to go yet. I would wake up every morning and listen for her. Sometimes, I could hear her moving around, but sometimes, it was so quiet I would get scared and get up to see if she was still with us.

It's such a terrible decision that we had to make. I hope I never have to again. I know we did the right thing by letting her go. I often wonder if we should have waited longer. My husband thinks that she would not have had a good quality of life if we'd kept her here with us. Lumps were popping up in other places. He found one on the back of her neck just a couple days before she flew to heaven. If it was a tumour, then it was probably just a matter of time before it spread to her brain. And there was no way I could watch the awful deteriation that was sure to follow. Like I said Hunny had way too much pride and dignity. I wanted her to leave with her dignity intact. She knew we loved her. I just hope that she is not mad at me for what we did. I hope that one day she will forgive me. Lily too - because we couldn't save her.

I sent Hunny to heaven with a stuffed angel bear and one for her to give to Lily when she got there. I hope Lily flew down to get her. I also tucked a little letter in one of the angels for them. Hunny was cremated with these angels, but when I get to heaven (hopefully), I hope that these angels and the letter made it to heaven with Hunny. If there was no one there to read it to them, then I will read it to them when I get there.

I know this sounds really weird and crazy. And I'm bawling my eyes out as I write all of this, but I still have a lot of healing to do yet I guess After all it's only been four months since we gave Hunny her angel wings.

Sorry to ramble on and on. I think I may have gotten off track here too.

I miss them both so much.

So, I'm sending a hug to you. I know a hug feels so good when it hurts so much.

Take care.

Lynette.