Written on my phone, so forgive general laziness and extra weird typos.
This has been a shitty week, pet-wise. Friday, brought Nigel in for a dental. Had been reluctant to eat, especially hard food, so we thought maybe his teeth were doing something funky and ouchy. It’s very unusual for Nigel to refuse food. He’s such a piggy. Brought him in and, a couple hours later, got a call from Dr. Mary that his kidney values were through the roof. Hello, kidney failure. So, instead of a dental, he was hospitalized until today to have IV fluid and flush things out. He’s home now and we’ll hydrated and I managed to get him to eat his special kidney friendly food after 3 days of him refusing to eat anything at the vet office. Giving SQ fluids for a week and then going back to see what his blood work says.
And Nesmith. Poor, little Nemma. He’s been breathing harder the past few days. Either he’s developed resistance to his diuretic, his heart has gotten so enlarged that it can’t pump blood effectively at all and is squishing his lungs quite a bit, or a bit of both. It isn’t looking too good. We brought him in today as we were going to pick up Nigel and Dr. D kept him for a few hours, gave him IV Salix. It didn’t seem to make much difference and we couldn’t quite tell what was going on in the radiographs since his heart is so enlarged. Brought Nemma home, fed him some rare steak since he’s not too keen on eating.
He’s sleeping now, between me and Aaron. Only time when he’s not breathing hard. I keep looking over at him to see if he still is breathing, half relieved and half disappointed when he still is. That sounds terrible, I know, but those of you who have struggled with that end-of-life decision know what I mean. I love my Nemma and I’m not ready to say goodbye, never will be, but I think he very nearly is and I have to do what’s best for him. Aaron and I have been crying on and off since we brought him home, knowing what must come soon, but trying not to actually talk about it. I’ve got that sad, heartbroken feeling, knowing that pretty soon there will be a Nemma shaped hole in my life. I’ve had months to think about this, try to mentally prepare for it, since he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure but, well, you can’t. But I know we’ve given him a good life and tried so hard to manage this disease. Doesn’t make it any easier, though. I’m not ready, but he is.
Still breathing.
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