My breast cancer journey: Goodbye Abby

Today was such a beautiful, sunny warm fall Halloween day. The sky was so blue with only a few high clouds and the smell of fall was in the air as I drove over to the vet clinic to send my sweet Abby girl to Heaven. She was my black lab that I adopted from the animal shelter over 12 years ago. She was approximately 13 years old. She was such a special, gentle soul. From the moment we got her we nursed her back to health as she was very sick.

She joined our little family as Jake's (yellow lab) new sister and our 2nd kid (dog). She was literally perfect in every way. She was gentle with everyone she met. She was so in tune with our feelings and emotions. In her younger years she was playful with Jake and didn't leave his side. She never had an accident in the house. She did however like to chew on wood and bones. Our poor deck in our first house suffered a little bit from her but we overlooked it because we loved her so much. She spent 2 years with us before we brought Kaci home from the hospital. We tried to prepare our dog family as much as we could for our new arrival. Jeff even took a blanket home from the hospital that Kaci had been wrapped in so they could smell it. When we got home the next day Abby immediately bonded with Kaci. We put Kaci on a blanket on the floor and Abby joined her (our favorite picture of the two of them). We never had any fear or worry that Abby would hurt Kaci or step on her. We knew Kaci was safe with Abby watching over her. Jake on the other hand could not be in the house if Kaci was on the floor, he was a very rambunctious dog and still to this day doesn't understand personal space.

Kaci was Abby's favorite sister, they hung out together all the time. Abby had to put up with Kaci ordering her around and playing dress up all of these years. She always did whatever Kaci wanted and I know she enjoyed the attention.

I am writing about Abby on my cancer blog because out of my three dogs she was really in tune with what was going on with me during my treatments. The night we shaved my head it was Abby who noticed and kept starring at me. I don't think she was starring because I looked so different, it was almost like she was saying she was so sorry I was having to go through something so hard. After each chemo treatment she would sniff me more than usual. I really feel that she knew what I was going through. She was just giving me her love and letting me know that she was there for me. I am so glad she waited until I was through my treatments to leave.

After we returned from our trip to Disneyworld, the pet sitter informed me that Abby did not eat her food on Saturday morning. We were home that afternoon and were not concerned because there was many days she would not eat. As the week went on and she still refused to eat, it appeared she got weaker with each day. She also kept hanging out in the family room with us and for the past couple of years she was mostly found on one of the beds. She liked her alone time! On Thursday Jeff called to tell me that he bought her some chicken nuggets from McDonalds and she wouldn't eat them. When she refused the people food then we knew we had a problem. He initially thought it might be her mouth and maybe she had an infected tooth or something. I made a vet appointment for 4PM. Jeff took Kaci to dance and then met us up there. Her temperature was 105 degrees and she was very dehydrated. The doctor said she needed to be hospitalized over night to hydrate her and see about getting the fever down with antibiotics. In the meantime they drew her blood for her a full blood panel. I had to take it down to their other clinic to be ran and then they called me within an hour. When he called to told me that she was anemic and her platelet count was very low and she was at risk of hemorrhaging at any time. He also said he took an x-ray of her spleen and noticed a mass that was pushing on her bowels. He said it doesn't look good and the only thing they could do for her would be a plasma transfusion and even yet that would only buy her a few more days. He recommended leaving her in the hospital to get hydrated and picking her up the next day. He couldn't give us a time frame but said it would probably only be a few more days that we had left with her. I picked her up on Friday afternoon with the instructions to feed her whatever I wanted and to say our goodbyes I got her home with Kaci and my neice who were out of school that day and I went back to work. Our plan was to spend the weekend with her and then decide the next week what day we would need to put her down or maybe she would pass at home. When I got home from work our house smelled terrible. I realized it was Abby. Her stomach was grumbling constantly and she had really bad gas. I almost wonder if it was her body shutting down. She was also bleeding from the mouth and from the spot on her back where they took her blood. Her platelet count was that low that her blood could not clot and we don't know what was going on in her mouth. That night I told her everything that I wanted to say and told her it was okay to leave. We all took our turns but when Jake who was sitting a little ways away from us started to cry, it broke our hearts. I slid him closer to us and he licked her in the face over and over as if to say his goodbye's too. Jeff slept with her that night on the living room floor since she needed out to go potty during the night. We all woke up early today and agreed she lost the sparkle in her eyes. Jeff and I decided that we would have her put down today. I called the vet a little before 9:00AM and our appointment was set for 11:15AM. After I called Abby needed out again to go potty. She slipped on the tile on the way out which was unusual for her. She made it down the deck stairs and went potty but on the way up the stairs she was out of breath and breathing really hard. I had to carry her the rest of the way. We fed her the canned dog food the vet gave us and some beef jerky, she scarfed it down and then needed out again. When we let her out this time she made it out to go pee and then she started to poo and it was really runny and her back end fell down. She tried to stand up and all 4 legs went out from under her. She couldn't stand back up. We all surrounded her and spent time with her outside. She loved laying out in the sunshine anyway so we knew she was happy to lay there for a while on the grass. After about a half hour I got her up just enough to walk to the downstairs basement door but when she saw the stairs she refused to go up. I carried her upstairs and laid her on the couch until it was time to leave. Jeff and Kaci drove Abby while Jake, Ely and I took the other car and left ahead of them so I could get into the vet to pay for everything. They were so nice and let us stay in the car with her until it was time and came out and got us. We were given a rather large room and all of us went into the room with me carrying Abby again, she could not stand up. They had a blanket down for Abby and she laid down on that. Jake joined her on the blanket and laid right beside her. We all sat on the floor while Ely checked the place out and even barked a few times because she could hear dogs on the other side of the door. That is not what we wanted, we wanted it very quiet and peaceful but Ely is still a kid and because she is part of our family we felt she needed to be there. The doctor came in and told us how sorry he was and then injected the medicine into Abby. We all had our hands on her so she didn't leave this world alone. I had closed her eyes as it was being injected. She went very fast and it was peaceful. Afterwards the doctor said that we could take as much time with her as we wanted. I was ready to go, I don't handle death that well but Jeff and Kaci wanted to stay longer. I got Jake and Ely ready to go and Ely went over and sniffed Abby but Jake didn't. I think he knows but he is very old too and senile and he gets really nervous at the vets office. We went home while Kaci and Jeff spent more time with her.

I cannot believe she is gone. I know I would not have her forever but when this day comes you are never prepared. She was seriously our kid. I would always say that I have 4 kids (one human kid and 3 canine kids). We loved her so much and always loved telling her story of how we got her from the animal shelter. She only had a couple of days left at the shelter before they would have euthanized her. We literally saved her life and in return she saved ours.

Goodbye my sweet Abby girl! Jake won't be too far behind you.