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Thread: In memory of my Caseybug

  1. #21
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Hi Jill

    Everyone has already expressed what I might have said as one dog lover to another. My heart is heavy for you.

    I read the following letter written an American singer, Fiona Apple, to her fans and posted on Facebook. She had cancelled a tour to be with her dying dog. I am hoping there might be some sense of comfort for you in her words. Here they are:


    It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.
    I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.
    Here's the thing.
    I have a dog Janet, and she's been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially - and she was my child.
    She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.
    She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.
    She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.
    Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.
    We've lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it's always really been the two of us.
    She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.
    She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.
    The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.
    She has Addison's Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.
    Despite all of this, she’s effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.
    She's my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.
    I can't come to South America. Not now.
    When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.
    She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.
    I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That’s why they are so much more present than people.
    But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She’ll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.
    I just can't leave her now, please understand.
    If I go away again, I’m afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.
    Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.
    But this decision is instant.
    These are the choices we make, which define us.
    I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.
    I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.
    And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.
    Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.
    I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.
    I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.
    I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.
    Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.
    When she dies.
    So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.
    And I am asking for your blessing.

    I'll be seeing you.
    Love, Fiona

  2. #22
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    Jan 2013
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Thank you so much for posting this, I can certainly relate. Casey's having a rough day today, I have written down the # for a at home vet, and called her dad to let him know how our day is going. I haven't called yet, and am hoping that I won't need the # for awhile still. I am having trouble, I keep hearing that I will know when it's the right time, but then 2 days ago I thought we were done and then she turned around and had two spectacular days. The problem is, is that I see her have an episode where, let me see if I can describe it. It's not a seizure. She grits her teeth real hard to where I can hear them grind, her head or the back of her head twitches and she shakes a little. She gets this look on her face like what is happening and sometimes groan a deep in her throat, like she is trying to fight the spasm. Having written that it may seem to people like, how can I watch that, the answer is, I can't. That is what has me worried that I will make the decision before she is ready. Its hard being so indecisive, so I can only assume that it is not time yet??? Does that make sense?

  3. #23
    mytil's Avatar
    mytil is offline Administrator and always In Loving Memory
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    It makes perfect sense Jill. This is one of the hardest things, I know first hand. Know we are all here to support you. It is a question of quality of life for your girl and asking yourself this. It is especially hard when they have good days. But do the good days out number the bad and is there a lot of pain.

    Have you had a heart to heart with your vet yet as to what she is feeling?

    My ((((hugs)))) to you and your family and to dear sweet Casey.
    Terry

  4. #24
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    No heart to heart with her regular besides after the initial call I placed to him when we learned the cancer had spread. We are going to do one that's on my bucket list tonight, I am making steak(very expensive steak), we are going to sit down as a family, Kevin and I on the floor with Casey and we are all going to enjoy dinner together, as a family. This my way of showing her that she's more than "just a dog" she is a full-fledged member of this family and will be treated as such, she will have her own plate & we will all eat the same thing, at the same time, together. Her dad works late normally till around 8 so we don't normally get to eat together anyhow. I hope she gets my meaning!

  5. #25
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Of course it makes sense. It is absolutely horrible to see them in distress and not know what to do to fix it or worse, to know that you can't.
    Lets look at it like this though. How often do they occur and how often do they last and does Casey seem to be in pain? Those are the things that will tell you how things are going. I don't know if that is as helpful as I meant it to be or not.
    Today is a rough day though. So really big hugs to you and some belly rubs for Casey.

    hugs,
    Sharlene and Molly Muffin
    Last edited by molly muffin; 01-07-2013 at 06:44 PM. Reason: big hugs not bug hugs ROFL
    Sharlene and the late great diva - Molly muffin (always missed and never forgotten)

  6. #26
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Ah what to say, I called her vet today, he won't be in til tomorrow but I left him message asking what the signs of pancreatic cancer are and if he did in home euthanasia, and to call me back. I can't believe the guilt that I felt making that call, I had to go outside so she couldn't hear me. I don't think he does in home euthanasia but we will see. I would much rather it be him that does it, someone who has cared for her her whole life rather than some stranger. I am being stupid? And why does this feel like a betrayal of trust?

  7. #27
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Because it hurts so much to have to make those kind of calls.
    It's not betrayal, it's getting your ducks in a row, so that when the time comes and when you are at your most distraught, you won't have to think about what to do, who to call, etc. You'll know. You'll hate it, every second, but you'll know and you'll do whatever it is that you need to do to take care of Casey just as you have always taken care of her.

    Big Hugs, tomorrow is another day, but tonight! there is steak!
    Sharlene and Molly Muffin
    Sharlene and the late great diva - Molly muffin (always missed and never forgotten)

  8. #28
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Hahaha, I love that last part, tomorrow is another day, but tonight there is steak! Thank you for making me laugh, and thank you all for sharing in this trying time with me, some of my family members don't understand, I can't tell u how thankful I feel to have found you all. Many, many, many you are all angels.

  9. #29
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Jill, please, please don't let the guilt consume you as you contemplate being the one to make this final decision for your beloved Casey. Please keep at the forefront of your mind that what motivates you to take these steps is your enormous love for this precious soul. You love her so much that you don't want her to suffer beyond her endurance and that has to be the purest of any love.

    Actually, right at this moment I have a wee warm spot glowing inside me that says, "don't worry, these two will never be apart - they are soul mates are forever". Human or furry, it doesn't matter.

    With the love of one dog lover to another
    Claire

  10. #30
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    Default Re: Getting ready to say goodby to my Casey

    Fiona and Jill: Such beautiful expressions of love for your beloved dogs. Tears are flowing as I read these loving words. How greater love could there be Fiona than to put your beloved dog above yourself. Jill I can just see Casey eating his steak from a plate. He is a lucky dog and you and your husband are lucky to have such love from a beautiful furbaby. They are our babies and we will love and cherish them forever. My heart goes out to both of you at this terrible time. Much love, JoAnne

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