Que is gone.
Our wonderful vet - Sue Hughson - came this morning and gave Que a lethal injection, and she was gone in just a couple of minutes.
I'm too upset to write about it now. I will deal with it later.
Good bye Que. We love you.
Poor old Que. She has been such a trooper. A good and loyal dog. Even in her days of illness and weakness, all of the other dogs still respect and fear her - as do the cats.
I have been writing about her saga for a while now. It all started in the summer, when she was diagnosed with cancer. She was 14 in September, and so has lived a good, and a long life by dog standards. She has not seemed to be suffering any pain, only blows to her dignity, so we have avoided euthanasia. I have been changing her bandages and washing her daily for the last 6 months. We tried arsenicum to give her her own decision on whether to keep going, but it is time for us to make the hard decision.
We have a babby coming in 2 months, and the stench of her cancer is pervading the house. She has also taken to crapping in the kitchen lately. Last night and this morning, she had horrific smelling diarrhea, and it was all over the kitchen, and her. This has become untenable with the imminent arrival of the babby. I am just too worried about bringing a new-born into a house full of disease.
We have decided to end it this week. J called the veterinarian this morning to arrange to have her put down this week. It breaks my heart to do it, but I feel that we have little other choice. She can barely haul herself up the 4 front steps to get inside, and her world has shrunk to the kitchen, and the front yard and sidewalk in front of our house. She has absolutely no quality of life left.
I have given her this medal (from the Bataan Death March) for her heroism in defying death. We will not receive any such commendation, as we have succumbed to the inevitability of it for her.
I'm very sad today, and humbled.
I wrote about the final chapter for Que a bit ago, but I have under-estimated her yet again. The deterioration reported then was due (we think) to her swallowing a large chunk of bone (her teeth aren't so good anymore), resulting in an intestinal back-up. She cleared that, and has been pretty good since.
She started seeping profusely again a couple of days ago, and yesterday I went and picked up another dose of Arsenicum Album (50M), and started dosing her every half hour last night. I don't expect the arsenicum to push her into her good night, but it does almost stop the seeping, and makes the old girl a lot more stable.
Watching and waiting.
I have written (here and here) about our old dog Que, and about her cancer, and our dilemna about euthanising her.
We did not choose to euthanise, and after the last round of high-dose (50M) arsenicum, she was almost like her old self again. The weeping of the serum dwindled to almost nothing, she went out with the pack a few times, the tumour(s) shrank, and we thought that she might hang on until the babby comes.
Today that all seems to have changed. She went out to relieve herself this morning and collapsed on the lawn. She just laid there for a while until J coaxed her to come back into the house. She wouldn't eat today, no wagging tail, no interest in anything. We feel that she may have finally decided that enough is enough. Her breathing seems a bit laboured, and she is just laying in her spot in the kitchen. She won't even loft her head to look at us. She is either very pissed off at us for some reason, or she has given up. Right now, I wonder if she will make it through the night.
We have taken the bucket/lampshade/whatever that she has been wearing to keep her from ripping off the bandages (and eating them), so that she can die in peace and with dignity. She is a very proud and dignified old lady, and she hates that bucket.
We are on a death watch now, and I will keep you up to date.
(The photo above is from about 4 years ago)
Well, today Que seems better. The Arsenicum does that - slows down the seepage, and makes her more like her old self. Weird.
So, no euthanasia this week.
The resolve falters...
This is our old dog Que (kee-a). She has been with us since she was 4 months old, and has been a great dog. She is brave (was a great bear dog - keeping them away from our camps, and chased them without fear, would stand up to anything, but is very gentle with people), loyal, and has been a big part of our life for 14 years. She has traveled everywhere - across Canada as far as Montreal, to Mexico twice, and spent ten summers with us while we planted trees in northern B.C. She has gone after porcupines, and received a face full of quills - in the mouth, and up the nose, and let J take them out with pliers - without anaesthetic. Five years ago she had two huge lypomas removed (weighing almost 4 pounds together). Tough as nails she is.
This spring she started to grow new, huge lumps in her abdomen and chest, which turned out to be a type of haemosarcoma - cancer. We immediately accepted that that was the beginning of the end, and that we might have to consider euthanasia eventually. In July we decided to give her a homeopathic remedy of arsenicum album (10M), which was meant to help her make the decision to let go of life by herself. I was very upset when I gave it to her because I did not want to cause her death. Our veterinarian (who is great) assured me that it would not cause death, but would help Que make the decision on her own. She did not succumb, and still wagged her tail, was interested in her food, and still wanted to go for walks (although she was barely able).
In August, we decided to try the Arsenicum again. As with the first dose, she seemed to improve for a while, but by now the cancer had ulcerated, and a lot of serum and blood was leaking out, so we had to start bandaging her. She kept ripping off the bandages, and eating them (in an attempt to hide her weakness from the world, or out of hygiene - a question unanswered), so we had to put a "lampshade" on her to keep her away from the bandages. The serum smells very foul, and she needs the bandages changed, and the site washed frequently.
In September, we tried another dose of arsenicum, but she still hangs on. She couldn't walk much more than a block by then, and her legs kept failing her, resulting in numerous face-plants.
With every dose of arsenicum, we said that if it didn't work, we would have the vet over to administer a lethal dose of barbituates, but Que did not seem ready to let go, and we don't feel that it is right to force the end on a beautiful creature that does not want to go. I have put animals who where obviously suffering out of their misery before (a cow with a broken back, a pelican with a broken wing - starving on the beach, a couple of very sick hamsters, and various mice and birds that the cats caught and were torturing), but I had no attachment to them, and it would have been cruel to let them suffer. Que shows no sign of being in any pain, and does not seem to be suffering.
Last week I got another dose of arsenicum for her (50M this time), and we have decided that if that doesn't work, we are going to decide to have the barbituates by the end of the week. It remains to be seen if we have the resolve though
My Grandma lived to be 102 years old, and enjoyed pretty good health and strength until she was about 98 (although she was stone deaf, and had only 10% vision in only one eye). She went downhill slowly after that, and beginning around the age of 99 she started to tell me that she was ready to die, wanted to die, and wondered when she would. She eventually made the decision to stop eating, and died about three weeks later. She was well cared for at the end, and did not suffer (she was given morphine patches to eliminate any pain). I would never have made the decision to have her euthanized, so how to make that decision for a creature that cannot speak?
