the rainbow bridge has been crossed, and i'm not talking about niagara falls

Some of you know that our miniature beagle, Belle, has been sick off and on lately. It started about two months ago, and eventually the vet said it was a bacteria in the intestine, so we started feeding her a prescription dog food with Tylan powder (an antibiotic for dogs) and Metamucil for fiber. She would get better, then get sick again. When given a shot of Cortisone, she perked right up, so the vet thought the bacterial problem was in addition to something else that Cortisone seems to have an effect on.

Today we took her to the vet to have an endoscopy to find out what was wrong. They put Belle under anesthesia, but before beginning the endoscopy, they noticed one of her lymph nodes was swollen. The vet aspirated some cells from there, and thought it was probably............. lymphoma (do they make a Hodgkin's vs. non-Hodgkin's distinction for dogs too?). To be 100% certain, she would have to send the aspiration to a veterinary specialist, who may just want the whole lymph node to diagnose.

Just as in humans, lymphoma in dogs is one of the more treatable cancers and is "controllable" with chemotherapy, so you can get another year or more of life, but eventually "the cancer always wins." What it came down to was, the chemo is not only pricey (and no insurance, like I had) but we'd have to drive her to a veterinary specialist in Cleveland. And how much better would she get? Would she suffer more months of this up-and-down? When would we finally say it was time? She's already 15 or 16, and she's been with us for 9 years.

So we decided to let her cross the bridge. :( She's already under anesthesia for the endoscopy she was going to have today, so we decided to have them do it while she's still asleep.

I was tearing up hearing my dad make the decision on the phone. We hugged. It wasn't until my mom came home and I told her the news that the waterworks came on, I think partly because it was more sudden than we expected. With our last dog, a beaglemix named Max, I had sort of accepted that he was leaving, and even had the intuition to say goodbye to him that day before I left for school. We had also had him for 9 years, and we found Belle not two weeks prior to his passing.

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
--James Thurber




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