Goodbye Ricky

Most of you have never met Ricky, but you know he's been a part of my family and my life for the past 14.5 years.

Your most recent memories of him might largely be unpleasant ones - his large tumour and the traumatic surgery at the start of the year; our 6 months battle with ticks after his return from the hospital; his rapid loss of sight and sense of hearing; his inability to navigate around the house, falling down and getting stuck in corners; his incontinence and our experiences with diapers; his constant whining, crying and howling during the day and in the middle of the night...

The past year was very intense and had taken a toll on everyone in the family - especially my mum, who was the primary caregiver of Ricky.For many months, she had been urging us to consider putting Ricky to sleep but we dawdled and hemmed and hawed. It was a hard and painful decision we were reluctant to make; and it was tough to make a call to decide when "the right time" was. After all, Ricky was still eating, albeit needing us to feed him mouthful by mouthful, and walking around (though he got lost in his own home constantly). However, over the past few weeks, his condition gradually deteriorated. He started earing lesser and lesser.He was unable to get up most of the time. As a result, he soiled himself constantly. Being fastidious about cleanliness, Ricky would get very distressed with every episode and would cry and howl incessantly. The few times he managed to get on his feet, he would stumble around but collapse after a few steps.

As I began reading about dog euthanasia, the common opinion on the internet was thatonce a dog's quality of life is no longer present, it would be time to put the dog to sleep. A dog's wish in life is to be happy, to play, to love and be pain free. Ricky was definitely in pain and unhappy. He had not been wagging his tail...in months.

It took us a long time to come to a decision but we finally did. Ricky no longer enjoyed quality of life and to keep him with us for any longer would be thoughtless and selfish.

Today, at 9:30am, Ricky left his pain-ridden body behind and found peace.The medication delivered by the vet ensured a quick and painless departure. He was accompanied by family members who love him dearly when he left. I hope Ricky knew and felt our love as he drew his final breath.

If there is doggy heaven,Ricky will be there now - galloping freely, pain-free and chasing after apples, chicken, squeaky balls and vacuum cleaners.

Please remember Ricky not as the suffering ancient one, but as my family member who brought us years of love and joy; who left behind many funny stories of his antics, tricks and wits; who was a kind, gentle and loving dog.

Ricky today...

... is a shadow of his former self. Correction. He is not even a shadow - for a shadow keeps and follows closely, and he is nowhere close today.

Ricky has lost his sense of sight and sound; he can barely walk or find his way around; he never wags his tail and bites every finger that strays near his mouth, forcefully. Stairs which were once his path to freedom are now the stairway to doom. The house which was once his kingdom and playground to roam, now presents unforeseen danger and obstacles. He is no longer able to feed or drink on his own; his diapers are wrapped around him 24/7 and he sleeps the day away. When he is not sleeping, he is either fumbling around, falling down and/or whining and crying out loud. Yet, he continues to hang on; continues to eat and drink when presented the choice. Is it a strong will to live; or is it just the basic instinct to feed?

Tomorrow, we might be bringing him down to the vet to make the painful decision that is only inevitable...

I wake up on average 3 times each night. It regularly occurs at 2am, 4am and 6am. Each time, I would hear him getting up (his nails are terribly long and thus noisy), hear the shushing sounds of water aka pee and I would have jumped out of bed even before he is done peeing. It's an automatic reflex. I would immediately set him aside once he's done, so that he would not step on his pee, grab the mop from the balcony and clean up his mess. If he messed up in the living room and no one heard it, Ricky would start whining until someone wakes up to attend to him and the mess. Usually, he would settle back to sleep once we've cleaned up; but occasionally, he would be whining softly for a prolonged period and I would have to keep sayang-ing him.

On many an occasion, I would lose my cool, exasperated at the loss of my much needed sleep and handle him rather roughly. But honestly, Ricky never had a choice or say in the current state of affair. We were the ones who put him through the surgery, deliberately prolonging his life when it might actually have been his time. So we have to bear the consequences of our decision and make the best out of the situation.

Sleepyhead

Was it...

... a good decision to not let him go?

We really don't know.

But if you could see him the way we saw him on the morning to the vet, you might have made the same decision too. He just didn't seem ready to go. Not yet.

P.S.: The pictures were taken on the morning before we left for the vet. In a moment crippled with fear and grief, I wanted to capture what I had imagined could be his last moments at home; not realising surgery was to manifest as an option at the vet later.

Keropoking

Ricky is sharing keropok with me. Right now. =)

Sometimes...

...I dread going home these days. Because every day brings great uncertainties and hence, the trepidation.

Has it been a good day for Ricky? Or has it been awful? How moody will my mum be? What will she complain about today? Will Ricky be asleep? Or will he be howling and crying? Has he been eating well? Did he mess up the house again? Are his legs holding up? Did he drink water? Is he going to wake up every 2 hours tonight and cry without us understanding what we can do to help him?

Today, I shared with a colleague the whole experience and he commented that ours was the most traumatic and eventful elderly dog situation he had heard of. It's so emotional, I told him, that I doubt I will ever want to keep a dog or pet again. Sure, it was fun and enjoyable when Ricky was young. But I never used to spend so much time at home taking care of him as I do now. Hence, the most vivid memories are of the recent 2 years (and logically so) when his tumour developed and the quality of life started dipping for him; and trust me, it's not fun at all. Experiencing the full life cycle of your pet and growing with him is a huge privilege and joy (an analogy would be an accelerated growth of your baby less the angsty teenage years) but to witness a very long-drawn painful aging and eventual death is too much for my weak heart.

Anyway, I digressed. I meant to say, at the start of this post, that Ricky has been well for the past 3 days. He is healing well and is due to remove all his stitches in 2 weeks time. He still cries but lesser. He still wakes up often in the night but is better behaved. He eats quite a lot, walks quite a bit, is able to drink on his own but has an extremely weak bladder (like his owner, yours truly). I am seriously contemplating diapers. Not the Large baby diapers from Fair Price again. Real doggie diapers this time.

For the first time in 2 weeks, Ricky wagged his tail violently when I patted him. =)

Ricky came home last Saturday morning. Post op, one of our greater fears was his inability to get up on his feet and walk, due to his arthritis. In fact, the vet was almost convinced that he wouldn't be able to and required our assistance and daily physiotherapy. So imagine our surprise and relief when he proved us wrong and got up and about on Saturday itself. That night, Ricky came to look for me in my room, settled himself down at my feet and promptly fell asleep in the middle of the room. I was hopeful that this was a moment which would continue to repeat in the days, months ahead.

A recuperating cranky old dog demanded a lot of time and attention and the whole family hovered over him throughout the weekend, always ready with food, meds and cleaning supplies to clean up his pee and poop. I was concerned when the work week started as it meant that my mum would be burdened with bearing sole responsibilities during the day.

Things went pretty smoothly until Wednesday morning at work, when I realised I had 2 missed calls from home. Ricky had significant blood clots in his pee and he kept peeing for the past hour, my mum frantically shared. I dropped all work, arranged for a pet taxi and went home. In the one hour which we waited for the taxi, Ricky paced around restlessly and would stop to pee every 5 to 10 mins. It was as if he was deliberately squeezing out a few drops each time. Each small puddle would have some blood clots. There were 2 big clots earlier, mum said. He was clearly in distress and there was nothing else to do but pace alongside him and cleaning up after him constantly.

After an extremely uncomfortable ride which Ricky was whining and howling throughout, we were back at James Tan. Again... The vet suspected stones to have caused the blood clots. But an X-ray proved otherwise. Unable to pinpoint the exact reason, the vet instead shared that his X-ray showed abnormalities. His intestine was not where it should be. Instead, it was pushed to the rear end. Without ultrasound scans, she was unable to diagnose accurately. However, she suggested it could be another growth in the stomach; a swollen prostate; or another growth somewhere that was bleeding out. She advised that if we want to diagnose, ultrasound would be the way to go but that should be done with the intent to correct what's wrong i.e., another operation, most likely. Else, we will work with meds and keep him as comfortable as we can. If the meds don't work, then maybe it's indeed more humane to let him go. Already guilt-ridden for putting him through the pain of one surgery, I am not at all willing to put him under the knife again...

We took him home and thankfully, he stopped passing out blood clots for the rest of the day. In fact, he was almost back to his usual self and ate a hearty dinner; and allowed us to pump him with all kinds of meds....

And Thursday came. Thursday's not a good day. I came home to find out that he had slept the day away and refused food. He woke up soon after and vomited last night's food. He was unable to digest. His stomach was churning. He was distressed. Brother and I force fed him glucose and meds; and he fell asleep shortly.

An hour ago, I woke to his crying. Quite unable to soothe him, my brother took over and sayanged him successfully. Ricky is now in my brother's room, whining occasionally but otherwise all right.

My mum expresses her sadness and frustrations by being grumpy, angry, quarrelsome and pessimistic. She claims to wash her hands off Ricky already. Whilst it's grating to hear, I know where she's coming from.

Friends tell me to make the best decision for Ricky but really, what's the best? The family needs to be at peace with the decision but my brother and mum have strongly opposing views. I'm caught in the middle and it's draining, having to manage them, Ricky and my own emotions.

Ricky, I wish you can give us a clear indication soon.

Today...

is just not a great day.