New And Extremely Sad

Hello all. My name is Julie and last week I had to make the difficult and painstaking decision to have my little 3 1/2 yr old dachshund "Frankie" put down. He had been having seizures sporadically and the vet school couldn't find anything physically or metabolically wrong with him. They began to get more frequent about 2 weeks ago (1 every day for 3 days) so I took him back to the vet school for more testing. He was there for a week and they couldn't find anything wrong. They ruled it as idiopathic epilepsy and were about to start treating him with the proper medications when everything went haywire. I received a call Tues. night saying they were going to begin the drug regimen on Wed. morning. They'd done a CT scan and a test (I can't think of the name) to test the fluid around his brain and all was clear. MRI was normal. However, before they could even administer the medications on Wed. morning, he began to seize. They stopped them with valium and phenobarbital the first time. Then he started to seize one on top of the other and nothing seemed to help. They sedated him and called me to tell me that I might want to come and see him as they were extremely perplexed by his condition. As a side note, Frankie had been diagnosed with hemophilia A & B last year so we were also dealing with that. I left work immediately for my 100 mile trek to the vet school. 5 minutes after I got on the road, I received a call from one of the students on his case telling me that he was in full arrest and she'd call me back asap with more info. The vet called me back about 20 minutes later to tell me that he was not well at all. He was alive but barely and now bleeding in his brain, behind and into his eyes (the brown part), bleeding under his tongue etc. etc. I was mortified and devastated. All alone on a 100 mile trip and now I had to make the decision about whether or not to prolong his life. I spoke with the vet who was extremely caring and not yet willing to give up on sweet Frankie. She said she'd keep him on a ventilator until I got there and we'd discuss options. But by the time I got there, he had been seizing again even under heavy sedation.

We weighed all the options and I sat alone holding him looking for some glimmer of hope. I made the decision based on the info I was given that it was best to not let him suffer any further. He already looked awful. The bleeding behind and into his eyes was bad and they weren't sure he'd ever really be the same. But I was told they could give him a transfusion and we could hope and wait. I just couldn't do it. He was the sweetest little dog I've ever owned. So loving and snuggly. I had to let him go. So I held him close and cuddled him while they did the rest.

For the next 2 days I second guessed my decision. I told myself I had given up too soon on him. He was young and still had so much life to live. I listened to countless people say "it was *just* a dog! You can always get another one!" But he wasn't *just* a dog to me. He was so much more. He was my "child" before I had a child. He came into my life as a gift from my husband after a particularly traumatic miscarriage and 8 years of infertility. I needed to "mother" something. Frankie was that special little creature I could focus my attention on and he paid it back to me 10 fold.

I also made the decision to have him cremated. The Vet school offered this and they'd also asked my permission to do some testing on him to see if they could figure out what went wrong so quickly. I received a call late Friday afternoon from the vet. The first words out of her mouth were "you absolutely, without a doubt, did the best thing for him!" The pathology on his brain had come back and he had some disease of the brain that so far they've only seen in pugs. Something about the white blood cells attacking the brain and causing normal brain cells to become abnormal. The fact of the matter was, he had very few "normal" brain cells and the pathologist was amazed that up until 12-24 hours before his death he was relatively normal. He said he should have been blind, cripple, and or even in a vegatative state. So while it made it somewhat easier to deal with the actual euthanizing part, it didn't help the fact that my life still has this big empty place in it.

I should be getting his ashes in a few days. They wanted to finish all the testing and all and I completely consented to any testing in hopes that it would help someone elses beloved pet down the road.

Now I just can't seem to get over this grief. My husband has been a real trooper and he even cried, which I was surprised at, when I got home on Wed. I have another dachshund that's 11 and he's not himself. I can tell he is grieving. He doesn't get up off the couch to bark when I get home or even come greet me at all. He just mopes around. Even the cat has been affected. She and Frankie were great pals and she's been meowing and moping around also.

I just don't know what to do! I want another dog but I don't. I know they'll never be another "frankie". He was truly one amazing dog. My other dog isn't a cuddly. In fact, at his age, he's rather grumpy and standoffish.

Then there's the dilmena of telling my 2 1/1 year old son about Frankie. He has no concept of death but he does know frankie was "sick" and at the "hospital" and he asks every single day when he's coming home. I haven't had the heart or the energy to explain it to him so I just simply say "he can't come home yet". I keep thinking maybe he'll just forget about him but I don't think it's fair to do him that way. When his ashes come, he'll recongnize Frankie's collar on the urn...he'll ask questions. He's pretty perseptive for his age altho the death thing is just over his head.

So where do I go from here? What do I do with all this anger and grief? How do I handle things with my child?