(no subject)
It's now been a little over 2 months since we lost Bridgee. I wish I had recorded everything that had happened during the last 6 months with her illness, but it was just too painful. After she got better in August, it was the best feeling to know she was getting better specifically because of the things I was doing for her. But she had many complications. The high blood pressure, losing vision temporarily in her left eye, the low red blood cell count that meant her getting injections to help the regrowth of the red blood cells. And finally at the end, the seizure. Looking back over it all, I understand what happened. I did everything that was physically and financially possible to turn her around, and even in the face of death, she did her best to recuperate. She tried just as hard as I did, and she did well for a long time. 2 years in kidney failure is amazing. But it got to this point, before the initial crash in August, where I forgot all about her illness because she just seemed to handle it all so well. She didn't act sick, and she looked so healthy. I took her for granted for a long time, up until the first crash. I made sure to appreciate her much more from that point on, and I can't even begin to describe the elation I felt when she strated to get even better than my bosses thought she would. I sat in that cage with her for days while she just laid there looking lifeless, and I didn't know if it would be the end of things or not. But she got better, and we brought her home the final time and she blossomed again. It was like the past week of daily IV treatments hadn't happened at all, I couldn't even believe she was doing so well. The values had gone back down and she felt great. We started her back on the subq fluids at home, slowly weaning her to an easier treatment. And when she did so well, I'll admit I had some hope. I forgot that she was dying, I thought I'd get another year out of her. In truth, the second crash probably came because of me. I had started being lax with the fluids, and her values started creeping up again, and I monitored them, I saw how high they were getting, but it didn't push me to do them as often as I should have been doing them, even then. She'd go a week or more without them, and I certainly knew better than to do that to her. 5 months after the first crash, she crashed again. Another week in hospital with IV fluids, another week of blood work and injections. She didn't recover that time though. The values barely came down, and not nearly as quickly as we'd have liked them to, but she seemed to feel better like last time. So after 6 days of it, I took the catheter out and we started her on daily subq treatments, and then the numbers came down some more. I hoped we'd get another 5 months out of her like we did the first time. I really didn't see it coming then, I thought she was getting better. And then after the 2nd week of being home, she stopped eating and started throwing everything up. And no matter what we cooked or offered her, she wouldn't eat it, wouldn't come near it, wouldn't touch it. And I started to have a sinking feeling, but I ignored it. 3 days without eating or holding anything down. She was trying to tell me she was ready to go, that she didn't have the strength to keep fighting it. Her body was tired. She had fought for so long, she just wanted rest. I had promised her that as soon as she told me she was ready, I'd do what needed to be done because she didn't deserve to suffer. And I fat out lied to her. For 3 days I looked her in the eyes, and I read the message loud and clear, and completely ignored it. I didn't listen. I kept thinking there was something I could do, if we could just get her eating again, if she could just bounce back one more time for us, she'd make it another couple months maybe. I was staring the end in the face and blatantly ignoring it all. And when the end came, I felt totally and utterly responsible for it. I came home from work late that Saturday, after 2. My back was hurting from cleaning up 4 or 5 piles of vomit from her the night before, and all morning everyone had been telling me to go home. But it was my weekend, and I didn't want to leave and not know what I'd have to handle that night, so I stayed. Mom had picked up some meds to give her before I got home. I ate lunch with daddy, made Booboo some chicken, sliced it and went into my room. She jumped up and ran to me, something she hadn't done in days. And she damn near bit my fingers off getting to that chicken. She was starving, and she wanted it. She scarfed it down, every piece. Gave me some kisses and then went and lied down. I stayed in my room with her for probably half an hour, making sure she didn't throw it all up. She seemed to feel okay. I loved on her a little bit. And then I went outside to brush Mariah so mom could bathe her later that day. I was out there maybe 20 minutes. I chased Mariah around brushing her, trimmed her's and Trooper's nails, and then went back inside to check on Bridgee because by then it had almost been an hour and I was going to try to feed her again. I found her lying on her side, panting and foaming at the mouth. She was just starting to come out of a seizure. I had never seen her seizure before, and I knew right then it was because the kidneys were never going to work again, and even though she was getting half a liter of fluids under the skin daily, it wasn't doing any good any longer. I have never known panic like that in my life. I rushed to her side, completely freaking out. Screaming her name, holding her, crying. I didn't even know what to do because I didn't know what had happened, or for how long. I could hardly hit the keys on my phone to call Dr Monte, I kept hitting the wrong buttons and dialing the wrong number. She agreed to meet me at the clinic to evaluate her. Bridgee tried getting up but all she would do was collapse. She wanted to be near me though, she kept crawling to me so be in between my legs. I ran out and told dad, he came in to see her. I thought she was going to die right there but she didn't. While trying to get her in the car, she started to do something akin to dying and I flipped out. But she snapped out of it. Twice more she stiffened up on me, did that death howl they do when they start to go, and then snapped out of it. It was the weirdest thing in the world I'd ever seen and I was so incoherent I didn't know what to do with her except hold her and kiss her and tell her she could go if she wanted to. But she held on. By the time we got there, she was coherent again. She recognized us at least. We got her in, got her up on the table and waited for Dr Monte to get there. She gave us a few kisses, but they weren't Booboo kisses. She wasn't right. We put her on the floor when Monte got there, tried to get her to stand up or walk to us, but she just sat there, with a funny look on her face. It wasn't Booboo. She wasn't right and she was never going to be right again after this. I had to let her go, there was nothing more my money or drugs could do for her. It was over. 2 years of a very long battle coming to and end and I was shocked and reeling from it. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to take her home, let her go there, where she'd be comfortable. She hated that god damned clinic more than anything. She felt safe in my room. But because I didn't listen to her in those final days, because I was so selfish, she had to die on the floor of that fucking clinic, the one place she hated more than anywhere else, and she died scared and miserable. Her last hour on earth, the one that should have mattered the most out of them all because of the act, was miserable, scary, and painful. I ignored her wishes for 3 days. Looking back, I could easily read it on her face. She wasn't hiding it. She'd kiss me but give me this look that said "I'm done". I was too selfish to see it. She could have gone so much easier, and smoother, if I had listened to her. That was my job. I used to ask her, every day of these last 5 months, how much longer I'd get to have her. And if she'd tell me when she was ready so I'd know when to let her go. And she held up her side of the bargain, she told me. I flat out ignored her. I didn't keep my promise to her. It eats me up every day. What I allowed to happen to her. That last day WAS my fault. No one can tell me otherwise. It would not have happened if I had let her go the day she stopped eating, or even the day after. I knew better, but my judgment was clouded. I shouldn't have let it happen. Now its over, and there's no way for me to apologize to her for it. I did what I could to rectify it, but the damage was already done. I let her down. I was supposed to be the one helping her, making the pain go away. Instead I intensified it for a little while. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair. She was asking for help to go and I didn't help her. She was counting on me. I feel like such a horrible owner. All the years of treatment are erased with that one last day. I might as well have not even treated her if I was going to let that happen to her in the end. She didn't deserve it. She deserved the easiest, most pain free way out. I was supposed to give that to her. That was my last job. And its my fault she suffered that last hour of her life, the hour that should have meant the most out of the whole ordeal. Damn it. And it's like... these whole 2 years we fought it, what good did it do her in the end really? I got 2 more years with her, sure, but to go through all the annoyance, frustration, to spend all those thousands of dollars, the blood work, the meds, the special food, the supplements, the fluids... for it to have the same end result no matter what I did, what was the point of it all really? She was dying for 2 years. I prolonged it for as long as I could but the end result was still the same. She was going to die no matter what I did, and she did die. So what was the point in all of it if the end result stayed the same regardless of the actions I took against it? It feels like all the effort wasn't even worth it. And it doesn't help that I don't believe in an afterlife. That doesn't help at all. If I believed in that at least, I could use it as my crutch and say well, she may not be here now but she went "home" and I'll see her again one day, even if I have to wait half a lifetime to do it. But I don't believe in that, so I can't say that to myself to make myself feel better about any of it. I really don't even believe in the Rainbow Bridge, as nice a theory as it is, and I wish like hell that I could think it's real. But I'm a logical person. If I just had that, I think this whole thing would be much easier to deal with. But I think that's the biggest reason I'm having such difficulty handling this. I don't believe I'll ever see her again. I saw her one last time before they cremated her, and I'll never see her again, I'll never kiss her or be kissed by her, I'll never scratch her belly again, I'll never get another Booboo hug. It's over. That's what kills me. I just want to see her again, and I genuinely feel that I never will. It may be a crutch, but its a crutch I truly wish I could use. It would make this whole thing so much easier to come to terms with. I just can't believe she's really gone now. 2 months without her and it seems like only yesterday I was saying good bye. Time has flown by so quickly now without her here. It doesn't feel right without her. I know she'd want me to be happy and to know that I did everything humanly possible to save her from going, but in the end I still failed her. And in the end she's still gone forever and it will never feel the same without her. Nothing is right. And I hate it. I absolutely hate waking up in the morning, knowing I'm going to look for her, fully well knowing she wont be there. I hate walking into my room and catching myself saying hello to her or calling her name. I hate not seeing her at the door greeting me when I first walk in, or seeing her lying on the bed zonked out, or hearing her whine because I came in and didn't go say hi to her first. It's not fair to love someone or something this much when they can't stay yours forever. When they can't even stay alive for as long as we do. Why couldn't I at least have that? I'd like to think that wherever she is, she's running around quite happy to be free of the restraint the illness had on her these last couple years, but I can't even take comfort in thinking that because it's not something that makes sense to me to believe in. It was all a waste, the entire thing was just one big waste of energy and time and frustration, it got us no where but where we would have ended up anyway. And I fucking hate feeling this way and having no idea how to shake it.