u/Fantastic_Excuse6976

I really don’t understand how so many of you are managing to do 3 meals + 2 snacks everyday. My 13th month old takes 1 or 2 naps a day, but it doesn’t really make a difference either way. We do 3 meals but I’m only rarely getting even 1 snack in. Meal times are at least 30-45 mins, plus clean up time. Even in a 5 hour wake window, 2 meals takes up at least 2 hours. I can’t imagine consistently adding in more!

If it’s relevant, I’m still breastfeeding and she nurses when she wakes up, before nap(s), at bedtime, and sometimes for a snack if we only do 1 nap. And usually once during the night. She and I usually eat all of our meals together.

She’s always been a picky eater. I can’t put too much on her tray at once or she swipes if off angrily. And I have to give her water separately because otherwise she’ll just drink the water. So meal times usually involve me offering her the main portion of the meal a few pieces at a time. Then offering her some fruit. Then offering her water. All of that takes a long time!

She also usually gets a teether crisp packet while I’m preparing dinner (about an hour before we actually eat) because sometimes she starts to get fussy (because she wants someone to play with her) and the teether pack makes her happy lol.

I’m so sorry for the long post, but I feel like I need to get it all out. My hope is that by writing all of these details out, maybe I’ll be able to let go of some of the grief and guilt. Even if no one reads this. I’ve had to write it over the course of about a week because it’s still so painful. Even though I think about it all the time it’s hard to put down in writing.

One year ago I had to put one of my dogs down. The situation was extremely traumatic. We don’t think she was even 2 years old. I was also 9 months pregnant. I’m writing this because it’s one year later and I feel like I’ve hardly made any progress with processing the grief. So maybe expressing it here will help.

I rescued Honeybear about 2.5 years ago and we ended up only getting a little over a year with her. She had a rough start in life. She was a stray, was pretty emaciated and had heartworm when they found her. She was a shepherd/mal mix. The sweetest dog I’ve ever had. She was very submissive and I always felt an extremely strong urge to protect her. She absolutely adored her dog siblings. She was so grateful to be part of a pack.

Last March I thought she had a bug or something because she was off for a few days. Not a huge appetite, a little lethargic, but otherwise fairly normal. I think she vomited once but then seemed to be okay. After another day or so she started turning down food altogether and I could barely coax her to eat an egg, so that was the day I took her to the vet. In hindsight I can’t believe I didn’t take her in sooner, but dogs are so good at masking their pain, and she could occasionally be a picky eater anyway. They told me a few days wouldn’t have made a difference, but who knows.

At the vet she had a 106 never so I rushed her to the emergency vet. My vet had recommended their affiliated animal hospital because they wouldn’t “fleece” us, but I didn’t realize that meant they weren’t fully equipped to deal with any situation. I brought her there even though my gut told me to take her to a larger-scale facility. They started her on IVs and antibiotics. That was Thursday. For the next couple of days her fever oscillated between 103 and 104. I didn’t visit her because I was sure I’d be bringing her home and I didn’t want her to see me until that actually happened. I didn’t want her to feel abandoned all over again. Another thing I will regret forever. On Sunday the vet released her to me, which they really shouldn’t have done since her fever really hadn’t stayed below 103 for very long. However, it ended up being the last time she was in my home, so I’m grateful. I’m grateful for that last day of hope I had, and that the other dogs were able to see her one more time. By that evening her fever was back to 106 so we rushed her back to the emergency vet and asked for an ultrasound. The ultrasonographer wasn’t there until Monday, (the next day) so we kept on waiting.

On the ultrasound they could see some sort of obstruction in her intestines but also just so much inflammation that they couldn’t tell what was going on. They said she needed surgery within the next 24 hours. We had to pick her up and rush her to a better-equipped facility with specialists. The next day, Tuesday, they went in to do “exploratory surgery”.

By then she was septic. Here’s what the found: apparently, whoever had done her spay surgery (before we adopted her) had left a piece of surgical gauze in her abdomen. Meaning that over the course of the year+ that we had her, it was slowly adhering her abdominal wall to her intestines, killing the healthy tissue, and ultimately causing perforation, infection, and sepsis.

They took out part of her intestines and her colon and did a resection and anastomosis. The next day was Wednesday. Again I didn’t visit her because I was worried she would get overly excited and it would damage her healing process (at this point I still was optimistic about bringing her home, they gave her decent odds because she was so young). After being assured it wouldn’t do any harm, I visited her the next day. She was so happy to see me even though she was clearly still not feeling with her. I cuddled with her and kicked myself for not coming sooner. Then the vet told me she was suspicious of the fluid pocket she noticed that day. They took her to do another ultrasound and found that the site had dehissed. I had just a few minutes to decide what to do.

I knew she wasn’t ready to go yet and that I needed to fight for her and give her one more chance. So we did a second surgery. This time the odds were 50/50 and that’s when I truly realized I could lose her. They took out more of her colon and used a different technique for the resection. I visited her on Friday and then again on Saturday. I decided I’d visit her every day until we either brought her home or had to say goodbye.

I spoke with one of the nurses around 10pm on Saturday night. She was doing well. We even chatted about what home care would look like when I was to bring her home in about a week. I started to feel hopeful again. Around midnight I got the call. It was clear the surgery site had dehissed again and she was in bad shape. We knew we couldn’t put her through a third surgery even if we could have afforded it (which we couldn’t. We couldn’t even afford the first 2 surgeries but we did them anyway). So we rushed to the vet to put her down. When we got there she was on the table shaking. They said it was the fever, not pain, so I assume/really hope they’d given her something to make her comfortable in the hour for us it took to get there. They must have, right? Even in her miserable state she gave me a little wag. My sweet baby. I was her person. I held her as she went. I thought it was over so I let go. The tech said she was a fighter because there was still a very faint heartbeat, which broke my heart even further. I’m so mad at myself because I assumed she was already gone and the vet was just giving me a few moments. I really hope she was already peacefully asleep and didn’t feel me remove my hands from her in her final moments. That thought still haunts me. I hope she died feeling my arms around her and knowing how much I loved her.

I was able to speak with the surgeon about a week later. They found a really aggressive bacteria in the initial biopsy results and she suspects that was why the site dehissed a second time. But I feel like if they had known and been able to give the correct antibiotic, maybe she’d still be alive. She also said that even if we discovered the surgical gauze and operated 100 days earlier there’s a good chance the outcome would have been the same, but I don’t really buy that. I think she probably was just trying to make me feel better. But I can’t help but feel like if we got in there even a few days earlier, before she was septic, she might have made it. I mean how long could she have been septic for, 24 hours max? Or was it longer? Definitely couldn’t have been more than a few days right?

If you read this far you deserve a medal. I honestly don’t know what I’m hoping to get from this. It’s like I can’t even just enjoy the great memories I have of her and appreciate how lucky I was to know and love her even for a brief time, because I’m so fixated on and traumatized by her last week and the time we got robbed of. She wasn’t ready to go. It wasn’t her time. There are still moments where I’m so overwhelmed by grief that I can’t think straight. I’m still so angry. And so sad. So very sad.

ETA: thank you so much, kind internet strangers, for your heartfelt words of support. I was bawling as I read them this morning. If there were more people like you all in the world, it would be a better place. I plan to respond to as many individual posts as I can, but it’s very emotional so it might take me some time. In the meantime I wanted to let you know I appreciate you all for taking the time to read and respond! ❤️

How are you guys getting it all in??