Waking Up to Bad Thoughts

Usually I can wake up to calm and good thoughts, especially when I turn over and see my Diggie Dog  beside me on his back waiting for belly rubs or when he's trying desperately to lick my face and particularly my nose and eyes, which I assiduously try to avoid him doing. But today I woke up with bad thoughts, which counter all the other good thoughts I've had in the last few days.  It always starts with a little thought and grows to bigger ones that probably aren't even based in reality but you can't help but go there. As I said, I don't want to 'go' there but something must have triggered my subconscious thought processes and now I'm going "there". "There" is a bad place, an image that was filled with pain and the awfulness of his situation. I couldn't help it I guess because I was once again checking his gums and his face and kept feeling that it was looking worse to me, but then it didn't seem worse, he hasn't been worse, and to all others he would appear to be ok.  Those thoughts ran the gamut from he'll be cured and the lump will go down and completely disappear to it will grow beyond his eye and rupture and the only reason we will put him to sleep is to save him from intolerable pain, but the only thing "wrong" with him is that his jaw is involved.  Seems like that would be a terrible decision to make because he would be "basically" a healthy dog, with a good heart, good lungs, good kidneys and the only thing "failing" would be this lump that is so close to his eye and jaw.

It seems eerily similar to the cat we once had to put to sleep a year before we got Diggie Dog. The cat, Fawn, was an 8 year old and the love of our lives. She was a rare and unusual cat.  We believe she was a Hemingway kitty from Key West, those that Hemingway, the author, loved to breed because of their six toes.  One day she just came out of nowhere and visited our house and would visit us through the night and be gone the next morning. This went on for a few weeks, until one day, I saw her walking along the very busy highway, coming to our house. That night I decided she wasn't going to risk walking that highway again and we took her into our home along with the other three we owned at the time. About three weeks later, Hurricane Andrew hit where we were living and if she'd been outside, she wouldn't have made it. So she became ours and was the most loving and unusual cat I've ever owned.  Sadly eight years later she began suffering what was obviously kidney failure and we had to have one of her kidneys removed and when they removed it they said that it was deformed.  Unfortunately the other kidney was too.  We had no way of knowing this and due to the failure of the one kidney and then going down to the last one, her blood tests were indicating her values were rising and she was in complete kidney failure.  The veterinarian we had at the time recommended we consider putting her to sleep and yet this cat was perky, alive, loving, eating well, happy and otherwise acting like any other normal cat other than she had no kidney function left.  We took what looked like a healthy 8 year old cat in to have her put to sleep and it was the worst experience I've ever had and never want to repeat. She screamed a horrible, terrible, gut wrenching, nightmarish sounding scream...I left the room sobbing as my poor husband helped them to control her enough to give her an injection first.  I finally came back in but she was pretty much gone, glassy eyed and didn't know I was there. I swore at the time she knew we were putting her down. She knew we were giving up on her and she was being taken away.  It was the most disturbing thing I've ever done to any animal and I will not repeat that experience.

So to say this is similar is scary to me.  A somewhat perfect dog is put to sleep because of something in his mouth. It boggles my mind and yet I can't fathom letting him suffer in any way because that is our responsibility to him. With Fawn, she wasn't "suffering" but she was living with a failed kidney. We were responsible to her for helping her but when there is no hope you have to begin to live with the reality that this is the best she's going to be and the worst is surely going to come.  It could end up being the same thing for Mack, this is the best you're going to have right now and what if you wait too long?  Then you've let the little guy suffer in a way you never intended.

Bad thoughts, I know.  There they go again going off on their own tangent.  The arc of issues is wide and long and we can't know them until we actually experience them. This is something I have to remember, because in my heart I let Fawn go too soon, there were good days left, but I let fear of pain and suffering color my decision and there were things we could have done for her and I realize that now. She was telling me in her scream not to give up on her and I have to remember this with Mack, not to give in too soon to the fear but deal with reality.
Today is a good day.