Everyone that takes on a pet like a dog or a cat that lives 8-15 years, we all know what we are signing up for: We realize that outside of very strange and special circumstances that we are going to outlive our pets and we are going to have to be there at the end when they face their end.
There are at least 2 of you that I know follow me that can relate to this personally.
We all try to convince ourselves that this is just a tragic thing that happens to other people and that the end is "nigh" for others but our ending is always looming. Not just for our pets for for ourselves as well.
I perhaps focus on this a bit more than others because I have been through it before but recently, and I hope I am just being dramatic here, I found out from our veterinarian that one of the 3 very important internal organs for all mammals is starting to fail in my beloved doggo friend and companion, Nadi.
There was no really good reason for us to go to the vet. It was just a checkup. But, since I am nervous person by nature I had them check everything including things they normally wouldn't check. In their search which I demanded, they unfortunately discovered some things that I really wish were not true, but I also am adult enough to know is an eventuality.
There she is after a "break" from the checkup because she was breathing very heavy and was extremely anxious from being prodded and poked from so many needles and doctors that I asked for us to just be alone for a bit. She's old, she's nearly 90 in human-years so I just wanted her to be comfortable for a while and she was as soon as everyone else left the room and I sat on the floor with her.
The end is not clear yet though, but I am hesitant to be hopeful. I know that Nadi is old and even though she acts like a puppy every now and then, she behaves like you would expect a nearly 13 year old small dog would: She gets tired really easy and sleeps a lot. We go on a lot of walks but lately I have been carrying her back on a lot of them. Her vision is fading and her hearing is not very good either... I guess I am just happy that her sense of smell is still really good.
The terrible news is that when we got her bloodwork results back one of them was so bad that they don't even have a number for it. The computer that is doing the results just says "it's more than we can measure"
Go ahead and feel free to try to make sense of all of that. I would prefer to just take the word of the woman who went to doggo medical school and has 20 years of experience.
Basically, Nadi's liver is failing and they don't know if there is anything they can do to fix it. I don't even know if such a thing is possible. I hope so, but I don't want to give myself a pipe dream when I know the outcome is much more likely to go the other way.
The good news is Nadi is not an alcoholic like her Dad is and with the right diet we can keep her happy and healthy-ish for a while longer.
The bad news is that omnipresent countdown clock that I have feared for so long is now, well and truly ticking.
