I Miss My Girl

It's time for me to get all of this out. I haven't cried in about a week but I've made up for it today. I'm back to what if I had done this or that. What if she could have made it with a little more time. Look what I did to Bella. It was too soon. I could have given her more anti-biotics. This is torture. I just hope she is happy and that she still loves me. I hope I get to see her again.

In about ten months time, we had addressed every medical issue that she had. Everything was going well except for the bumps on her head. There weren't that many at first but slowly they increased just a little bit.

Her vet had just about run out of options and suggested a specialist. We saw an internal medicine specialist. He found that her heart was in good shape, no pulmonary hypertension but some chronic lower airway disease probably secondary to her severe heartworms...so that would explain the respiratory problems.

He continued the Doxycycline because her Erlichia titers were still very elevated. We had to find out where she was with that. As I understand it, it is a blood disease which can be mistaken for leukemia and it is a tick borne disease. Just another thing Bella suffered because of her neglect her entire life.

To make a long story short about this problem, it was eventually discovered that Bella had had Erlichia but that she had been successfully treated for it and it was not active at this time. That's how I understand it anyway.

Then the internist continued her Prevacox and Tramadol for arthritis pain.

Now on to the allergist. I didn't really care for this doctor. I didn't think she was a good communicator and I really couldn't understand all of the information that was being thrown at us at once. I went to take notes and she told me that wouldn't be necessary, everything would be in the report. Well, maybe it would but I was trying to make notes that I could understand. I called her once to ask her about something in the report and she returned my call. I called again to ask about somethingi else and she wouldn't return my call. I guess she wanted me to come back in. I'm sure it's more profitable.

She put her on Douxo Calm Shampoo and Spray, Clindamycin (another anti-biotic) for three weeks and changed up the medication for heartworm preventioin, flea and tick control. that was fine with me. She also put Ollie and Petie on the same three meds because she said if they weren't on the same things, they might reinfect Bella and each other.

Bella's ears were looking red inside and she gave her some Bur-Otic HC drops, a topical steroid for her ears. Bella used to love to get this because I would rub her ears and that felt good to her.

What I know now is the redness was caused by the skin irritation which was progressing a little at a time by now.

Then we saw a third vet for another opinion. He put her on Purina HA died....strictly that and water to see if the itching stopped. It did! So we knew that this was a food allergy problem. The idea was to keep her on that for about three months and introduce one food at a time to find the culprit.

He gave her an allergy injection, probably a steroid and Ditrim, which is a sulfa drug.

About a week and a half later, Bella had intestinal pain and horrible diarrhea so my son and I took her back to the vet. Then she was given a parasite test, which was negative, a Diathal Injection and sent home with Flagyl and Tramadol.

She was going downhill and I just started throwing out medications...except things that would keep her comfortable. It seemed to me that Bella was on too much medication. It was like one thing led to another.

Two days later, I noticed that she had lost some hair on her head and my son and I took her back to the doctor. While we were in the waiting room, hair started falling out on her nose and head. My son saw it and said, "what the hell is going on?!" and I told him I didn't have any idea. It was terrible.

When we got to the treatment room, we showed him what was happening and I said that I thought the bumps had increased. He looked alarmed and took her in the back to shave her head so he could get a better look. You will see a picture below of what she looked like when she came back. It is not pleasant to look at and my son and I both gasped when they brought her back in the room, after washing the lesions, treating her, giving her a Gentocin injection and Dexamethasone injection.

We took her home to get her comfortable but at this point I said, we are going back to Dr. Heartsill. She has known Bella longer than anyone and though we had felt we had run out of options and needed a second opinion, this was not going well.

When I took her back to Dr. H, one receptionist was so startled that she jumped back and another started to cry. They were expecing to see Bella the way she looked the last time they had seen her.

I told Dr. Heartsill that I thought she was on too much medication and she agreed.
She sedated her and did skin biopsies and sent them off to a physician in Canada that she had a lot of faith in. I picked Bella up the next morning and we came home.

We went on like this for about two and a half weeks. Bella had good days and bad days. One day I went in to check on her and she had a tear coming out of her left eye which was rolling down her face. She looked so tired and so sad....we were both that way. I just hugged her and told her I loved her.

I asked Dr. H if dogs can cry and she said yes though it is not common. Bella was crying. That's what I saw. She had been through so much. Maybe she knew we were getting to the end. I don't know. I pretty much don't know anything right now, especially, what happened to my dog.

Then she started to get extremely destructive...more than usual. So I started getting everything organized so that she couldn't get into things. I went to Walgreens across the street and was gone about 10-15 minutes and when I came in I found the mess you will see below. I had put everything on the kitchen table and pushed it way back so she couldn't get to it but she did and she tore everything up including the gate off of Ollies little house. She didn't want me to leave her at all and I didn't after that.

We had a wonderful present from her Aunt Toni and that really raised her spirits. There was a pretty blanket for Bella which she loved right away....and a little pink teddy bear. There was a pull toy, a toy for Petie and one for Ollie. This is from someone I have never met. She is another animal advocate and knew what was happening with Bella and wanted to send a "care package."

So finally, the biopsy came back. I don't understand all of it. All I know is that something terrible was wrong with her skin. The report said things like "I sense the desperation of this poor owner" and it was going to be hard to figure out the "etiologic message from the skin biopsies" (the reason), "dramatic lesions", "this is going to be an uphill battle." There was "no fungal disease, immune-mediated skin diseases, or idiosyncratic drug reaction and there was no cancer."

I think it meant we could keep trying but we weren't sure what we were fighting.

At that point, I just said...no more. We cannot do this anymore. If someone could give us a guarantee that would be one thing but Bella and I had done everything to "make it all go away" and we were both exhausted. We were both at the end of the line...and neither one of us wanted to say goodbye to the other one.

I let Dr. Heartsill know what I had decided. I told her that I would not ask her to do it because I knew how much she loved Bella and how much her staff loved her too. She told me to bring her in ....that she wanted to help her this one last time. I thought that was really sweet and that's where I wanted Bella to be for that journey.

So we went in the next day. They had put a quilt down on the floor of the conference room and we went in to spend some time together alone. It was the only time that Bella has let me hold her for as long as I wanted to and do the little spoons thing. Usually she would get tired of it and eventually move away....but not this time. I just kept rubbing her tummy and telling her how much I loved her and thanking her for all the love she had given to us...for everything. I asked her to come back for me when it was my time because if I can see her and those beautiful brown eyes, I won't be afraid.

Then I told Dr. H to come in. She and her assistant came in the room....so Bella was surrounded by people who loved her. I was holding her, as was her assistant. Dr. H injected some saline to clear the line....Bella didn't like that and she tried to pull her arm away. Of course, that makes me sad to think of that now. I hope it was just because the saline was cold. Then she gave her medication that would put her to sleep like they do in surgery so after that she wouldn't know anything that was going on. Of course, at that point, Bella just put her head down. She was all the way under like we are when we are given anesthesia. Then Dr. H gave her the final injection that would stop her breathing and her heart.

Dr. Heartsill listened with her stethoscope, the way they always do and she said..."she's already gone." Bella went right away. It didn't take her anytime. She was ready. She was out of here.

In a way, seeing her go that quickly was comforting to me. Maybe I had done the right thing. Maybe she really was as tired as she seemed. Maybe I was right about stopping. This is always an agonizing, impossible decision and there will always be days that I doubt myself.

Then, of course, my mind started playing tricks on me the way it does when something like this happens. When I got home, I called Dr. Heartsill and said, "make sure she's gone! I don't want her to wake up in that cooler!" She understood. I think a lot of people go through things like that when they have to put an animal to sleep or when they loose a loved one or experience some trauma.

Dr. Heartsill is so comforting and so understanding. She told me that she was gone and she said "the way I know that is because I checked her eye reflexes. I always do that because they are the last reflexes to go. Bella didn't have any eye reflexes. She's gone."

I think a really good vet or a really good physician has to be able to deal with people who are grieving and semi-hysterical, panicky and not thinking clearly. Thank God that Dr. Heartsill knew what to say to me to calm me down and assure me that Bella was safe.