I started noticing shifts in Timber in early May of 2022. She was acting a little off from her usual self. One morning, I woke up to find she had peed the bed. Concerned, I made an appointment with our vet. Timber has always been fearful of the vet and required a muzzle when we would go, for her safety and the staff's. The vet checked her out, took some blood, and told me it was probably Lyme disease (even though the Lyme test came back negative). She sent me off with Doxycycline and reassuring words that Timber looked great for her age and her blood work confirmed she was healthy. Feeling a bit better and seeing a little increase in Timber's energy, we carried on with our lives, throwing her a huge unicorn-themed party for her 8th birthday on 5/14. I kept giving her the meds, but the initial increase in pep had worn off, and she seemed unlike herself still. On May 26th, I got home from work, and Jay mentioned she had thrown up. She was a bit more lethargic than usual. I called the vet again, and they said it was most likely the meds; she probably was getting a sick stomach from them. They told me to check back in if it continued but not to be worried. I trusted that advice, and we went to meet friends for dinner. Two hours later, when we got home, I knew I shouldn’t have listened to the vet. Her mouth was cold, and her gums were pale. We rushed her to the emergency vet in Portland, ME. They were still under COVID restrictions, not allowing people in, so we waited in the car while they rushed to treat her. After some back and forth on tests they wanted to run, giving her fluid and managing her pain, they sent the tech out to talk to us. They had found fluid in her abdomen; they assumed it was a splenic rupture. We either could pursue an emergency splenectomy, which would cost $10-13K and she may not make it through, or we could say goodbye to her and euthanize her.
The tech said she would give us time to talk about it. I remember sitting in the car feeling so helpless, so mad at myself for going to dinner, angry at the vet for missing this. Thinking this couldn’t be the end of her life. She hated the vet, and now she was in there, alone. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye with the hope hanging over my head that she could make it. We chose to do the surgery, thank God for Care Credit, but also signed a DNR. I didn’t want her to suffer if things went wrong. We were able to go in for a few minutes and say goodbye to her for the night; they would do the surgery first thing in the morning.
Miraculously, Timber made it through the surgery. She stayed a few more days for observation but finally was able to come home. They had sent a biopsy to be tested for cancer. Now we played a waiting game—if it came back benign, prognosis was good. It came back a week later as cancer. Hemangiosarcoma to be exact. A nasty cancer that has a really short life span. The vet called to discuss options—chemotherapy, which may buy her a few months, or making her comfortable and waiting for the inevitable. Knowing Timber hated the vet and chemo would only give us a few months if that, we opted to give her the best rest of her life.
I spent so much time online, reading, trying to find out what we could do in the meantime to make her comfortable. I found a wonderful palliative care vet. We met with her, discussed Chinese herbs we could give her in the meantime and mushroom supplements; she gave us a care kit—a needle loaded up with drugs to make her comfortable should the decline come at a time when the vet couldn’t get to us quickly, and pamphlets on grief. She taught me how to monitor her breaths, which I did over and over and over again. She told us we needed to come up with a plan—what was our point at which we wanted to make the call to euthanize. How much suffering or pain would we let her endure?
We made a bucket list, we slowed everything down. We spent hours at the beach, laying in the backyard, and just soaking up every moment we had left with her. She had some really good days, and then she started to have really good hours out of days, and then came the fateful day when we went to the beach, her absolute favorite place, and she laid down.
I knew she was tired, and I knew she was probably in pain she wasn’t letting us see. I called the vet and let her know that it was time. She planned for the next afternoon. We went on one last car ride to our favorite beach sniff spots; my best friend sent us money to buy the finest filet for her last meal, and we spent the last day we had with her. When the vet came, Timber was in her favorite spot next to the armchair, and that’s where she stayed. She got to leave this earth surrounded by love, with her dignity and without too much suffering. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, and I second-guessed myself over and over again, but every time I look at the photos from that day at the beach, I am reminded that I made the best possible choice for her.
I miss her so much.
I documented my feelings and emotions throughout the process here: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTY3MDA5NDU3NjU2OTY2?story_media_id=2848143264779281073&igsh=ejFuNXBtNnNlbHBq
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