Later, I took him to the Leas he loved so well and he had a sniff round then sat next to me on a bench. When we got back, it was time to go on that last trip to the Vet, and he was so excited to be going out in the car that he bounded up the steps and he was happy.
The Vet who had seen him at the beginning of his illness saw him, and she is very kind and gentle and she was very nice to him. She agreed that his illness was end stage and that there really wasn't any treatment that would help. But because he had been so "well" it was very hard to let it go ahead. He fought, and in the end he had to have two doses of sedative before he could be given the overdose of anaesthetic. She tried to slip it in the vein in his only front paw and she even changed needles to make sure it was sharp, but he fought and yelped. He had had blood taken from there last week and I think he was still sore from that. And he only had one front paw. He had been worrying at it for ages and we think it may have been arthritic. So using the vein in the paw was out. It hurt and upset him too much.
We had a long wait as the sedatives take 20 minutes to work, and the first dose didn't sedate him enough, so a second dose had to be given. When the second sedative made him very drowsy after another 20 minutes, she put the euthanasing medicine into his heart and he went very quickly.
He had such a huge personality, and we loved him so much. It was sooo hard to let him go. At one stage both Michelle and I wanted to tell the Vet to stop, but didn't because we knew how ill he was, and none of us could have gone through that again. He didn't want to go and we didn't want him to go either, but the little lad's liver disease was end stage and he was suffering. He would have gone downhill from here, as he had over the past 3 weeks. My mum said it was better for him to go while he was still enjoying some parts of life rather than to wait until his essential Brakkieness was destroyed by pain and toxins.
So, because I love him dearly, I had to push him away when neither of us wanted it because it was the only reasonable and right option available.
You were a very good dog, my little Brak. You won't ever be forgotten, or have pain and sickness again.
A Postscript:
Now that I have had time to think it over, when I felt I should have told the Vet to stop, that is what I should have done. My mum, Michelle and I all felt that, and I should think the Vet did too. I have a feeling in my bones that he wanted to die at home with us. I think he would have preferred feeling ill in his familiar surroundings with people who loved him. It was a traumatic experience for all of us, and it shouldn't have been like that. It felt like a betrayal, but all I wanted was for my beloved boy to be released from suffering.
No comments:
Post a Comment