My sweet Ethel crossed the bridge yesterday afternoon with the assistance of Dr. Jordan from Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice. True to her spirit, although she had been slowly slipping away for more than a few days and I was watching her like a hawk as I wasn’t even sure if she was breathing half the time, as soon as Dr. Joran gave her the first sedative, she whipped her head up and around and gave him the business for poking her. After which, a testament to how ready to be released to her next journey she was, she laid her head down and passed quietly without even needing the 2nd injection.
Ethel came to DRSF as one of 4 dogs from Homestead who were “strays”. Two of them we were not able to help and so we gently helped them cross at Pet Medical Center Boca, and I was chosen as the lucky one to be Ethel and her Brother Harold’s Foster Mom. They were two peas in a pod and as cute as could be. All was well until Harold passed unexpectedly one night with no warning and no idea what could have caused it.
Ethel did not miss a beat and continued on giving the business to anyone and everyone who would listen. As our years together passed, time and effects of her previous life began to catch up with her. Ethel’s tongue hung out of her mouth from day 1 due to missing teeth, but over time her lower jaw disintegrated, a battle with a former foster resulted in a broken snout that never healed and floated on her face. She had repeat infections in said floating snout and even came out victorious over pancreatitis at LeadER and even had a visit with Dr. Alvarez, an Internal Medicine Specialist who saw something wonky in her bladder that we just chose to ignore because there were so many other things going on with her.
Over the last year, Ethel began to lose weight despite her appetite. Her snout caused breathing difficulties but as always, I was willing to keep fighting as long as she wanted to keep fighting. We tried various food options fed various ways…baby food from a dish, mashed potatoes from my finger, pulvarized chicken licked off a plate. I was up for anything that worked as long as it worked and when it didn’t work any longer, we would try something else.
As the months wore on, I knew our time was growing short and as the new year turned, I knew it was even shorter. Her walk slowed (but still with a pep in her step), she ate less, slept more, kept getting thinner and thinner. At the beginning of the week, I knew I had to make the call to let her go.
The hardest thing in the world is to pick up the phone and schedule a time for your dog to die. When is the right day? What is the right time? Morning? Afternoon? The process was further complicated by the fact that I have been working from home due to COVID and it didn’t feel right to take a vacation day, but I also didn’t seem right to schedule Ethel to die in between conference calls either. And so Thursday afternoon seemed to be the day.
From Tuesday morning through Thursday afternoon, I spent as much time as I could with Ethel. I put her bed near my desk and got her up every couple hours for her to get some water and potty. I would set her up and stabilize her and then go sit down again to let her have her moment sitting up on her own to drink some water, and if she toppled over, I would either set her up again or help her back into bed trying to remember which side she had been on before so I could put her back on her “other” side As the days wore on she ate less and less, until Thursday when she ate like a champ.
We spent Thursday afternoon together sitting in the fresh air and warmth on my patio, we meditated together (or I meditated and she slept), and then it was time to get ready for Dr. Jordan to arrive as our time together in this life drew to a close.
I let her know that I loved her and she would feel so much better when she got there and that there would be so many people she knew and loved to greet her including Harold, Seymour, and Agnes. Most importantly, I told her to do what she could to get everyone into line over there and try and take it easy on the guy with the gray fleece who would greet her when she got there as he had way more doggies over there to take care of than he bargained for.
