The morning of 10/23/02, I opened my door to my dad waiting
on the kids to bring them to school. He informed me that something was wrong with my dog, Sugar, she was barely moving.
I ran out, half dressed, to find her on her little bench. She would not pick up her head, but she would wag her tail
to acknowledge me there. I ran onto the porch to comfort her, but had to get dressed for work, so I went inside, crying,
to tell Chad what was happening. When I came out again, she was trying to move. She was able to climb off the
bench, and when she turned around, bloody diarrhea came out. You could see the red in it when it hit the porch floor.
After that, she moved more, walking around & trying to be peppy as usual. But she kept going back to her "bathroom
spot". Now straight blood was coming out.
We took her to the vet, where they went over the possiblities
of what & why. The gave her shots to stop the diarrhea, shots in case it was poisons, maybe something toxic, a virus..
everything they could think of. Before we left, she vomited, and it was very bloody. They sent us home & sent
off the bloodwork.
At lunch, my mother picked me up since I hadn't driven
to work. She said she had gone to see Sugar & she was a bit more peppy but still not well off. After lunch,
my mother called me back to tell me the blood results were back & "off the wall". There was not much hope,
it was not good. I called my mom later at work, around 3:30 to tell her that if my dog was going to die, she would not
die alone in a vet clinic that night, she was coming home with me to die at home, on her porch, where she lived most of her
life.
My mother picked me up at 4:30 from work. The second
I sat in the car & closed the door, my mother told me that my dog hadn't made it. After I talked to her, the vet
called & said she had died. She didn't suffer, she just fell asleep because her heart gave out.
As I write this, we still do not know what & why.
The vet is still waiting on the blood tests. Sugar will be cremated & her ashes buried. The last image of
my dog was of her being carried to the kennel part of the vet clinic by my dad. I had Sugar from the day she was born.
I have cried all day. I will never again be able to meet her at the edge of the porch when I come home.. or pet her
& play with her before I leave for work.
10/24/02 Results are in. Normal range of
bloodwork in the liver area= 10-40. Sugar's liver = 6800. It seems to be an aneurysm or tumor that blocked everything,
causing the blood vessels to be "eaten" through, erupting into her body & causing her to hemorrhage and eventually pass.
The vet said she had never seen numbers so high (her highest being seen was 200). It was something we could not have
prevented.
