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.

1.5kg

Okay. So I exaggerated (or I'm really bad with weights). The tumour was not 4, but 1.5kg. The nurse confirmed that when I visited Ricky earlier. Still, 1.5 is HUGE, considering Ricky is prob just 9kg.

Ricky seems okay. Obviously still in pain, but otherwise okay. :)

I was just telling my colleague how fortunate it was that money wasn't a consideration or deterring factor when it came down to making the call for the surgery. They say health is wealth. I say wealth is health. Mostly.

3pm (Part II)

Mum and I returned to the clinic at around 2 plus and we stayed with Ricky, who was on drip and lying motionless on the exam table until it was 3pm. We said bye bye, without meaning it literally and watched him being carried away by the nurses. His eyes were wide open and staring at us before the door shut on us...

For the next 2 hours, mum and I sat idly in the clinic, reading, talking and just wishing for the time to pass quickly. Finally, at around 5:15pm, a nurse came to inform us that the surgery was coming to an end, it was going well and they were preparing to stitch up my boy. :) We were asked to head off for dinner and come back at 6:30pm to see Ricky.

When Mum and I hit Orchard Road (the clinic is just along Stevens Road), she said we should have done this 2.5 hours ago and not stayed foolishly at the clinic. How could we have done that? What if something unfortunate happened midway into the surgery and we were too far away to get to him in time? Regardless, it was with much relief and quiet joy as we took our dinner.

We finally got to see Ricky at 7:00pm. His first greeting was to attempt to snap our hands off. "He's in a lot of pain," the nurse offered an explanation hurriedly but really, I took it as a sign of his usual crappy affection. :) But the poor baby was in a very weak state. He was shivering and whining softly from the pain and it was obvious why. The incision was easily 20cm and I couldn't begin to count the number of stitches at the incision site.


This large mass, which easily weighed 3-4 kg, was extracted from Ricky in the 2.5 hours surgery. It is basically of fatty tissues that grew and grew and literally sucked the life out of my Ricky.

Yes, we could have had it removed 2 years ago. But we had chosen what we believed to be "quality of life" over "quantity of life" for him and opted not to put him through the pain of surgery and instead, let him live his life as best as possible, as indulgently as we could.

Today, faced with the options of life and death, we chose life.

:)

A few more days in hospital and Ricky should be ready to come home.

3pm

Last night was an especially bad night for Ricky. Since after dinner, he hasn't been able to get up on his legs and spent much of his time whining. Mum and I took turns to soothe him and there was finally peace in the household in the early morning between 5-6am. At 6 plus, we awoke to his crying and found him lying in his own pee...

I had internally made a decision that the day Ricky is unable to get up on his own would be the day we bring him back to the vet to put him to sleep. But on the way to the vet today, Ricky, whilst distressed, was still alert and fighting. He would bite my fingers forcefully and look meaningfully at us with his big black eyes. On the exam table, before the vet came in, he came putting his paw over my hand.

I don't think he's ready to go.

When the vet presented the option of a surgery to remove the lump, with the advice that we have reached a point of no other viable options and that this is the best thing to do, we readily accepted this last chance of hope. A quick call to my brother confirmed the decision and to have the surgery today. Questions ran through my mind. Would he be able to survive? What if he passes on at the surgical table and I don't get to say goodbye? Will he be able to recover after the surgery? What if there are complications? Will removing the lump help him to get on his feet again? But these were non-questions, because I had already prepared myself for the worst in any case.

So now Ricky is at the vet, on drip. My mum and I will be returning back to the vet at 2 plus because his surgery will start at 3pm.

Pray for us.