We Had To Let Our Myah Go..... Options

[doe2658]

Hello everyone,
I am new here,we lost our yorkie Myah on Tuesday.March 1st. She was 10 years young! I want to apologize for this lengthy post.

Here is a timeline of events~
She was diagnosed with cushings disease 2 weeks ago, one of the tests was an ultrasound to determine if the cuhings disease was in the adrenal glands or pituitary glands, during the ultrasound they discovered a mass on her liver. So we put the cushings disease treatment (which wasn't life threatening) on hold so we could tackle the tumor.
The surgeons thought it was in one of her lobes so the plan was to open her up for exploratory surgery, take a biopsy, and if they could get the lobe out without any complications they would proceed. During the procedure, (while Myah was still under the anesthetic) the Dr. called and gave us the worse news possible. He stated that the main tumor was the size of a golf ball, and was "friable" ( meaning thin and easily torn) as they tried to manipulate the tumor, which was embedded far up in the lobe, it tore, they decided then that it was not removeable.They discovered another tumor on the other side of her liver and did remove that one. His main concern at this point was~ "Do we wake her up, or do we let her go peacefully."

***added on March 4th~ I did go in to get Myah's blanket and the locks of hair they had saved for us, Dr. came out to check on how I wa doing, he told me that after Myah passed, he did go back in and removed the larger tumor ( which he showed me) It was huge, and very ugly looking.

Just a bit of backpedling here~ Myah was a larger yorkie, almost 18 lbs. From the start she loved being in our pool. She would jump off of the diving board, she had her own raft ( she was our "pool girl") Everyone that came over knew it wa her pool, her rules!

The Dr. stated on the phone that his concern was this~ If we wake her up, send her home ( for a painful recovery) and given what they had discovered about the tumor (it could easily tear and she could bleed to death) she was living on borrowed time, as he thought she might have 6 weeks-2months.

Our dilema was~ Can't we just have her for one more pool season. Then the Dr. stated "she won't make it to pool season." With that we decided what we wanted was more time for US, we weren't thinking about Myah's time and her possible suffering, as she wasn't going to get better, she wasn't fixable at this point.
This was by far, one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make, let her go peacefully and somewhat healthy, (at least for the time being.) Her outward appearance showed no signs of the disease that was ravaging her liver.

I have been so positive, hoping for the best, yet in the back of my mind bracing for the worst. I am a true believer that sometimes God says Yes, and sometimes he says No. He had a reason for wanting our Myah right now.

W said at the time we decided to let her go that,

1) We owed it to her to let her go peacefully
2) We would not second guess ourselves.
3) She wasn't going to be the same Myah we had known for 10 years.
Well, here we are totally throwing out all of that, hurting so badly, I found this forum, read through the stories of beloved pets, and knew I had to share my feelings.

The house feels so cold and empty without her, we are having her cremated so we will have an urn with her cremains soon. Everywhere we turn, everything we do always revolved around Myah and her sister Molly who is 9, she is missing her teribly.

I appreciate the opportunity to share, and I welcome anyones commets and suggestions for dealing with our loss.
Thank you all so much,
Doe

[PeleMom]

Thank you, Doe. Hugs to you too...

I went through my box of pictures today, bringing out the pictures of Pele. It hurt at first to look at them but now I need them. They are comforting. I found some of Pele with my first cat, Zarzi (who disappeared about 10 years ago). I never really processed Zarzi's death because I never had closure. He used to leave on adventures for a few weeks and then when I got fed up with worry I would walk around the neighborhood shaking a bag of cat food and calling his name. I always found him. The last time I went out again and again and the weeks kept going by with no sign of him. And then, we had to move. I had someone in the neighborhood tell me a black cat was hit a few miles from my place but of course I never was able to find out if it had been him. I have always had this guilty conscience about having abandoned him. I still have dreams about him showing up, mad at me.

So, I have mixed feelings looking at these pictures, but I do feel happy, remembering how close Pele and Zarzi were. Seeing pictures of them snuggled up together makes me smile. I took a picture of Pele in to work and put it up. I'm not sure if it's healthy to be clinging to pictures and reminding myself all the time that Pele is gone, but it gets me by I suppose. I am absurdly busy, and squeezing time out of my schedule to deal with this loss has been hard and stressful. I took my first dance class since Pele died today. Somehow the world knew what I needed, we had a sub in and he did a lot of improvisation work with us. Expressing what I feel through movement also helps me. I just have to be careful that I don't release too much and start bawling in front of everyone.

I'm just mentioning these things in case they might help you in some way. And of course it helps me to share as well. I hope you are alright, taking one day at a time and allowing yourself to grieve. That is a challenge in itself, for me. I tend to bury it all inside because it hurts too much. And then I feel this stupid pressure to get over it quick so I don't mess up my grades, miss too much work and not make enough money, miss too many dance classes and fall behind, etc etc.

Anyway, take care...

~ Jana