Saturday, November 1, 2014

Another day, another dollar...




NOPE!
At least not today.
We stayed home all beautiful day!
Here in hotsy totsy Florida we actually had low seventies with low humidity with not so gentle breezes!

And tonight we are having an early cold spell drop in on our SUNSHINE STATE with temperatures in the forties!
Especially for Florida that is quite cold for November first!
On occasion in December and maybe even January and sometimes February we get cooler, but odd for this early here…

 Moving on...

Skipper is getting force fed still and now has to be carried even when he is outside, he sleeps an awful lot.

I fear his body is shutting down on him, but he does still drink water and eliminate that when he goes outside, still no accidents, except with drool from his mouth…

He has been getting the Tramadol like clockwork every ten hours or so, its directions are every eight to twelve. I just turned to Hubby and questioned that maybe he is over-medicated?

Although, he doesn’t get any in the middle of the night, during the day he gets it ten hours apart.

This is so hard, all our other extremely ill four legged friends we knew when it was time to let them go and all but one had been euthanized until now. While writing this in the sun-room on our oldie but goodie desktop computer Skipper had been lying on his mommy blanky, translation: fake sheepskin mat from puppy-hood, alongside our dinette table but next to me sort of in the next room, he just got up and walked all the way to the front door, sort of like a drunken sailor sixteen feet to the front door to look for Hubby! I guess I was ignoring him, shame on me!

Perhaps, we both have been too cautious with him… carrying him onto furniture and down off of it, when he always was capable of doing it himself…Although, it all started, our more concerned behavior when he would try one, two or three times and not be able to get up or land badly getting down from the furniture this cat-like balanced little guy!
I don’t know but it is so hard to know what is up with him, he is so alert and when we talk he watches us both as if hanging/understanding our every word. 

He is still that bright eyed little pup we love oh so much.

The difference here is that I recall with all the others the main issue was how much pain they were in and asking each veterinarian what they would do if he/she were theirs.

Previously, the answers were always so clear cut. Yes too much pain and I would let them go was always the definitive answer in all those cases, but this time, none said that when asked!

He had two blood tests each at the different facilities to verify his anemia and other info, the one here also did the initial x-rays determining the growths were there, and the ultra sound at the Ft. Myers facility verified all that.

We had stopped short at biopsy only because at that point they felt it might cause the cancer to spread, surgery was ruled out due to being told that he could die on the table and the cancer could spread that way too…Not many options.
All I do know is that he is very anemic; his gums are white although his tongue is still pink, no jaundice or yellowing anywhere, and his whites of his eyes are just that very white. 

We had one dog that did have liver cancer and vomited bile and turned jaundice in his eyes and gums that was Andrew our younger son’s dog from Hurricane Andrew 1992-2001, a collie Shepard mix and he lived till he was nine and he was euthanized within weeks of his diagnosis. Puffy 1979-1992 our grey and white domestic short hair cat had leukemia and she was on IV’s from August until February, she died at thirteen also euthanized.
Benji our male Yorkie 1984-1998 also had inoperable nasal tumor and I drove with him with him having syncopy, passing out/falling over in the truck, at the time, from here all the way up past Clearwater, nearly a two hour trip, just him and me, the specialist there told me that he had no hope and was in incredible pain, and so also euthanized. Brandi our female Yorkie and his gal, 1988-2004, had breast cancer twice and survived but her medication caused a heart problem that also gave her a horrible quality of life and was therefore told better to let her go years later, after the breast cancer…Mandy our black and white domestic short haired female cat foundling wandered into our garage as a kitten she was doomed from six years old  when diagnosed with kidney disease and even so survived till nine and died here at home and was the only one not to be euthanized, but neither was Charlie our thirty-one year old Cockatiel, he just fell dead off his perch one day. Casey our beautiful long-haired orange Tabby cat with amber eyes another foundling by our younger son and his girlfriend while in college and given to us when he joined the Navy, he all of a sudden got that horrible cancer of the tongue, where it looked as if it exploded it his mouth, he was euthanized when he lost half his body weight in two weeks due to being unable to eat and being in severe pain as well, he lived blissfully for thirteen years until then. We sadly do know how to let our little loved ones go...

So without the doctors helping to put this all in logical terms, and with now Tramadol masking any pain, we were never told about Tramadol for any of our others and all we were told then was that nothing could be done, but somehow with Skipper we have some hope…

I think I am telling all of you this so you can try and understand that we aren’t doing this to hang onto someone we love for selfish reasons, the truth is he is the one hanging on and we are just enabling that! Does that make any sense?

On that note of again telling more than any of you probably care to know, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS FALL BACK THOSE CLOCKS TONIGHT!

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