Thanks for your heart warming story, I sure that everyone reading it can identify with your pain. This is an excellent blog, but have you thought of starting a new one with your story and get others to contribute with theirs and perhaps add a photo or two in memory to their beloved pet?

Thanks so much for sharing. I’m very sorry about Kiks and for all the pain you went through.

What you describe is very similar to what we went through. We had two “senior panels” done on Seeya, and they both yielded nothing. But she just kept losing weight, which is always a sign of something.

My sister, who is a nurse for a vet, explained to me that the senior panel doesn’t really check everything — just sort of the baseline. I guess they don’t do quite the amount of testing for animals that they do for people.

But I share your frustration of being told everything checks out, but knowing something is wrong. The sounds odd but I’m almost glad that the mouth cancer started to smell because that led to a diagnosis, and, therefore, and explanation for everything that was happening.

I agree with you, too, about having someone to share with is important. Honestly, social media is great for that because you can reach people who really share your passion for animals, and you can reach them any time, day or night.

Good luck to you!

Gina

I’m so sorry to hear about your Seeya. I can really relate because we lost Kiks (pronounced keeks), our yorkie-shihtzu in January.

I wish we had recognized the signs earlier on. We have 3 other little ones at home and one was a pup. So we thought the the little accidents that happened in the middle of the night last year was from the puppy.

As it turned out it was from our Kiks.

The first sign was her right eye all of a sudden was red… not the whites, but the iris part of it. There was blood there, but the doctors couldn’t figure out why.

Soon after, she started having accidents all the time, and she began losing weight. The vet said she was having kidney failure and that the outlook wasn’t good.

After doing x-rays, it showed she had tumors in her chest… the doctor’s prognosis wasn’t good.

All of this was especially upsetting because every year we would do the “senior wellness” panels and exams, which revealed nothing out of the ordinary. We thought we were doing everything “right.” Her x-rays the year before were fine. So it was really disconcerting (not to mention extremely frustrating) to see how many tumors she had in her chest only a year later.

I tried everything to get her health back but 4 weeks later, she passed away in my arms at home with us.

I wanted to write to say “thank you” for your article and for creating a place where I can share about Kiks, whom we loved dearly.. It’s so true, what you arote about social media and “how oddly enough it can help us find a sense of humanity.”

So many Facebook friends reached out to me when they saw my post about taking Kiks to the vet the first time for the blood in her eye. I got emails or posts on my wall from all over the world. So many emotions were going through me when our dog was sick… fear, panic, anger, frustration, grief…

Towards the end, Kiks was so dehydrated, she needed to stay at the vet for a few days so she could have an IV attached. After 4 days, the vet said she couldn’t do anymore for her and so she taught me how to give her an IV at hom.

I work out of home and my boyfriend works during the week, so I was the one caring for Kiks during the day. My boyfriend sometimes can’t talk on the phone at work… and sometimes my friends weren’t available by phone. So I can’t tell you how nice it was to be able to connect with another human being who understood what I was going through — even if I didn’t “know” them personally and even if they were halfway around the world. Just to have another human being there who understood my situation made me feel better in that moment.

After Kiks passed away, I kind of shut down for awhile. I didn’t tell anyone she passed away for months. I just stopped mentioning her in my posts. So thank you for having this space here where I can finally talk about it. It still brings tears to my eyes as I think about that time – wondering “was there something I did wrong,” “was there something more I could’ve done?” WHY didn’t I see the signs sooner?”

And I know that sometimes, you just can’t help when someone you love passes away…because it just might be their time.

Thanks for sharing your experience with me. I really enjoyed reading your article.

Alexi