Walking Austin to the Rainbow Bridge

We have another hole in our family again today.  Just two months after saying goodbye to Sadie we had to say goodbye to Austin.  He woke us early this morning and cried out.  We got him up in bed, but he was very lethargic. We kept him up there for an hour, giving him lots of love. When Gloria put him down he didn't seem to be able to use his back legs.  He woke us again a couple hours later and we put him up in bed with us again.  We knew that is was time to let him go.  Once the vet was open we called and they said we could bring him in immediately.  One of the doctors delayed her surgery schedule to help us let him go.

Yesterday he was walking around, eating, just being our lovable cuddle-bug. Last night I was sitting on the couch rubbing Gloria's feet and he came around the side of my chair and just put his chin up on the seat. He was looking for Daddy to get some attention.

He has left a hole in our lives, a whole that will not quickly heal.  We miss you Austin.

Austin came to us as a stray who had been micro-chipped, but the previous owner did not want him back when contacted. He had one eye damaged from trauma, but the other one was fine.  We took him in as a foster at first, but he quickly found a spot in our laps and in our lives. Since adopting him he has lost a battle with glaucoma and gone blind in the other eye and had to have it removed after it became infected while battling the glaucoma. But he adapted quickly and we learned that his hearing was not totally gone like we had thought.  And we had plenty of evidence that his nose still worked.  And there were still times he would beat me down the hall to the bedroom at night - he knew the routine, the kids get treats before we go to bed.  He'd be down the hall and on my side of the bed when I walked into the bedroom.

I was at a funeral yesterday and the preached said something I've never considered before.  He started with the bible verse "Joy comes with the morning;" and continued with "but the morning starts in darkness."  "The morning starts with darkness" - a comforting and profound and simple statement.  We are in darkness in our sorrow over losing Austin. But in this darkness is the promise of morning and joy.  We will hold on to each other in the darkness and wait for the promise of light.

Gloria and I thank everyone for their kind thoughts, prayers, and condolences.

Tough Choices Delayed

It was a rough day yesterday.  We took our cuddle-bug, Austin, in for an ultrasound.

About two weeks ago, Gloria discovered a growth inside his lower right lip. We got him into the vet and they said it was cancer.  This was only about a month after we had to Say Goodbye to Sadie. so it hit hard.  We took him in for blood work and x-rays a couple days later and they told us he had an enlarged liver.

They said we should try and find out what was wrong with the liver before we tried any surgery for the cancer on his lip since some of the sedatives need to be processed by the liver and just to know if the cancer had spread to the liver. If it was not cancer then it was probably cushings disease.  If it was cushings then there was a treatment, but it was for the rest of his life, and could get expensive with the meds and the tests to be sure that the meds were at the right dosage.

So, we got him into the Greater Annapolis Animal Hospital yesterday for an ultrasound to see  (hear?) what's going on.  We found out he has a large mass in his liver and the bile in his gallbladder is thickening.  Either one of these could be addressed, but with the combination of these two and the cancer in his mouth, there is too much to overcome, he probably would not make it through all the necessary surgeries

After talking with the doctor at the hospital, and a call with our family vet we know what we need to do.  We're going to watch him and focus on providing the best quality of life we can for his remaining months.

After the two consultations yesterday, we're thinking he probably has three to six months left.  We will cuddle and snuggle and continue to spoil him as much as we can in the time left.  If he looks like he's in pain, we have some painkillers, but once he starts losing his appetite we'll know it's time to say goodbye; again.

We don't think he'll object to the extra cuddling and snuggling.  A couple years ago we had some friends over to the house after we had gone out to dinner and were sitting in the family room visiting.  I was holding Austin and petting him.  After awhile I put him down and he walked over to Gloria and she picked him up and held him for awhile.  When she put him down he came back over to me. This went on for most of the visit and finally our friends were laughing and told us what was happening.  We never noticed, but he had us trained very well.  He would walk in front of us and sit down and we would pick him up.  We've been onto him ever since, but we let him get away with it as much as he wants.

On another front, Hardy is not doing very well.  He is slowly deteriorating and suffering from dementia.

He is  almost 18 years old now and is totally blind and deaf. He spends most of his time sleeping. When he is awake he walks in clockwise circles most of the time.  He has even worn a bare spot in the grass in the yard right where he likes to pace in circles.  We can also see him having a more difficult time laying down and getting up. We think it's arthritis and are giving him what we can to make him comfortable.  But lately he's been getting stuck more and more around the house.  He seems to have forgotten, or lost, the ability to back up.  We've found him stuck a couple times between the toilet and the bathtub and he can't turn around or backup to get out.  

I've been talking to Gloria about his quality of life and we have been working ourselves up to the point of letting him go, but now with Austin, I don't know if we can say goodbye to three (including Sadie) in such a short time.  But we know that we need to make the tough choices.

Giving Mommy Kisses

It's part of fostering and adopting the older and special needs dogs that we've been taking into our lives for years.  It just seems so tough right now, to have to make the hard choices for so many in such a short period of time. And we don't want to lose sight of Truman. He's doing fine, but not getting as much of our attention as the others.

We'll make the choices we need to make and I'll keep posting pictures and reflections of the process we're going through.

While the garden outside is getting almost too much rain (I really need to do some weeding, but it's raining and I don't need to do it that urgently) thie rescue garden inside is weathering stormy times as nature follows her course and we have to learn to say goodbye again.