Ah, Damn

God, I miss her. It gets better, right?

Sierra started throwing up back in March. It was only on an empty stomach, and only bile came up. Just a thing that happens with older dogs, the vet said. Just give her Pepcid.

So we did that, and kept an eye on her.

It seemed to get better at first, but then... We realized she was skipping more meals than she was eating. And she was starting to be all fur and bones. Hard to tell with such a big furball.

So we went back to the vet. She was down 20lbs. They did a visual check and said we should see a canine dentist.

It just didn't feel right, so we decided to take her to the local animal hospital. They were the ones who took care of her when we went out of town. Making the appointment, I had to figure out when we'd last had her officially weighed to give them an idea of the time frame.

Six weeks. She lost 20lbs in six weeks. And in the few short days we'd waited to call the hospital, she'd gone off her dry dog food completely.

So in we went, and the worry notched up a little more.

The hospital vets reacted with the same concern we were feeling, and started testing. X-rays and full blood panels.

Everything looked clean, but now she was off hamburger and rice. We switched her to chicken and rice and got a weight. 3lbs down, but then 3lbs back and she's stable for a week - maybe two.

Then she's off chicken and rice and the real battle starts. We try something and she gobbles it down once, then she's off of it. Then she starts eating smaller and smaller portions and I start running out of things to try.

In the midst of this, I'd call the vets at the hospital. More tests were in order, but they suggested an internist and it would be a week and a half until he could see her.

So we waited and worried. Then she, well... crashed. Less than 500 calories across an entire week and she stopped drinking water. We rushed her to the hospital on a Saturday night and she didn't come home until Thursday.

There were ultrasounds and scopes and biopsies. We went to see her before work and after work and sometimes instead of work.

Friday, the vet called with the fast-tracked biopsy results. The nasty stuff in her stomach turned out to be the big bad cancer.

Crap. Crap and damnation. But the young vet who called said surgery was an option. 2-6 months without and 3-7 with, and she'd be able to eat again. Okay, so that I can deal with, give me a way to get her strength back and keep her comfortable and we'll do anything.

But we needed to decide soon and that meant a consult with the surgeon. The young vet had some reservations and we had questions.

When the surgeon cried, we knew we were sunk. We could do the surgery, but it would be painful and invasive and the vet didn't think she'd last a month afterwards. Every ray of hope we'd been been nurturing went one after the other. She gave us the things to look for to know it when it was time. And I lost it (again - I've been a freaking waterworks for what seems like forever. And a birdbrain, I can't keep anything in my head these days.) It didn't help that Sierra had already hit all three of the vet's points. But we'd been watching her at home and she still got joy from hanging with us and laying in the yard. We hung our hats on that and (I at least) hoped that any minute, she'd start eating and stabilize and we'd get that 6 months.

Early Sunday morning, I stumbled to the back door to let her out, and she looked like her old self. There was a rabbit in the middle of the yard, and she took off like a shot, barking her way to the fence line. But after she was done, she could hardly make it back inside. And when I got up for good about an hour later, I took one look and knew she was done. There wasn't anything left - she'd burned all the energy she had chasing that stupid rabbit.

We spent an hour or so alternatively crying, rationalizing, bargaining, and eventually came down to it. She wasn't ever going to get better. The tests said so, and the vets all said so. And now, we saw that she was doing what she thought we wanted. She was trying to make us happy.

WhatsHisFace called the hospital and they said they'd be ready whenever we were. That's as much as I can tell you. We made the choice and we took her in and we came home alone. Except... she was running on pure stubbornness, and that was obvious to all of us when it happened.

She had 10 good years - maybe even great. She was gorgeous and stubborn and adorable and nothing but unconditional love.

God I miss her.