we'll miss you, sweet boy

On January 2nd, we lost our sweet boy. He was my first dog and almost 13 years old. I am still in shock and just want him back so that I can rub that spot between his eyes once more. He loved that.

It's been really hard to accept this because when Bradley and I left to go to Virginia, we took him to my mom's and he was fine. Normal solly. And within two days, I think, my mom called to let us know that he had started to have seizures. Of course, I immediately freaked out. He's my baby. But my mom assured me that our vet thinks it's just epilepsy, and to not worry. We would get him on some medication to prevent the seizures and he would be fine. They put him on some epilepsy medicine and valium. This combo made him very out of it. When I came home on January 1st, I went into my mom's bathroom. He was completely drugged. He couldn't move. We, and our vet, thought this was just a reaction to the medicine. It was too much. So the plan was to take him to the vet at 11 the next morning. She was going to get an iv in him and get all the drugs out of his system and start over. She said this was normal that there is an adjustment period to find the right dosage.

Now it was time to go to bed, but I couldn't sleep, and I needed it because I was supposed to work at 9 the next morning. Every so often I would hear Solly whimpering and I would go lay beside him and calm him down, then go back to bed. This happened repeatedly throughout the night. Morning came and I went to take a shower. I found that Solly had thrown up and pooped during the night. I felt so bad because he was so drugged he couldn't move and we couldn't get him to go outside. And he's the kind of dog that never uses the bathroom in the house. So I'm sure he was doing everything he could not to go. After my shower I kept waffling on whether or not I should go to work. I decided not to. Within the next few hours he had thrown up again, but then seemed to be sleeping really well. But he still couldn't move. He would try to lift his head, but nothing. And then it happened. I was sitting at our kitchen table and my mom told me to come in there. I knew by the sound of her voice what was happening. He was gone. How did this happen? He was fine and now he's gone? How did we not know? So many thoughts were going through my head. I wasn't ready to let him go.

Our vet now thinks that he had cancer and that it had gone to his brain- causing the seizures. It's just so hard to believe because he had a full workup at the vet last March, to check everything. Something they offer for senior dogs. And nothing showed up! And in less than 5 days, all of this happens.

I keep battling with the fact that I want him back, for purely selfish reasons. But he was almost 13. He deserved to be able to go. I guess it's just hard without warning.